German Sovereign

United Internet, the German internet services provider, allocated a €600m Schuldschein issue today. The investors were German and international commercial banks and German savings banks.

Thursday was a busy day for European investment grade corporate bonds, with €4.9bn issued in euros and sterling. But with a great deal of diversity of issuers, maturities and currencies, the market had more appetite for some than for others.

Three issuers from France, Belgium and Germany raised €2.5bn in the covered bond market this week, and another €1bn transaction was expected from a Finnish issuer on Friday. The deals were all remarkable for the fact that the funding levels set new records for all issuers as the ECB’s allocation continued to grow, squeezing out other investors.

Turbulence hit a subordinated debt market that seemed to be about to hit its stride this week, as deals from Deutsche Bank and Erste Group slumped in the secondary market straight after sale.

Hapag-Lloyd, the German container shipping company, jumped into the high yield bond market on Thursday for a drive-by sale of a €250m bond, to refinance a deal maturing next year.

Grenke, the German IT leasing company, issued a 4.5 year bond on Wednesday. An order book of €300m allowed it to grow from an expected €100m to €125m.

This week's launch of RMB clearing in Germany and the completion of the first transactions shows that although there is a long term plan for an innovative clearing house structure in the country, for the moment the system is very much anchored to its first stage, clearing through Bank of China (BoC).

United Internet will complete its Schuldschein deal on Friday, raising at least €500m, according to a banker on the deal.

JAB Holding, the investment company of the Reimann family, has issued a debut €750m seven year bond. Real money investors took 96% of the allocations and the bond was priced inside the secondary level of Wendel, the French investment company, though it softened slightly in the secondary market.

German companies are not yet taking full advantage of the opportunities being brought about by the internationalisation of the renminbi, Deutsche Bank said this week, after a survey of treasury departments at German companies conducted by the bank and local trade journal Der Treasurer.

German IT company SAP today priced €2.75bn of the €4bn bonds it said it would issue to fund its acquisition of US expenses software firm Concur. The deal generated huge demand, with order books across the three tranches bulging to €11bn.

BMW became the latest in a string of international and non-UK companies to issue short dated sterling bonds recently, when it priced a £300m five year on Thursday.