Germany

NordLB has promoted two bankers to its FIG coverage and SSA teams, and plans to make further external hires soon.

Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs has improved a scheme guaranteeing export credit agency (ECA) loans, which could help boost the moribund public sector Pfandbrief market.

Germany is calling for bids for state-owned Depfa Bank, the once prolific issuer of Irish and German covered bonds whose parent, Hypo Real Estate, was taken into public ownership as a result of the 2008 financial crisis. There is little chance, however, that the transaction could see the issuer return to the covered bond market.

Short sellers who for years have complained that BaFin, the German financial markets regulator, ignored their criticisms of Wirecard, the collapsed payments company, and instead prosecuted the critics, have begun to be vindicated with the news that the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has opened a review into the organisation. By Silas Brown.

BMW Finance braved huge volatility in China’s bond market to sell a Rmb2.5bn ($357m) Panda bond this week, achieving a record coupon despite ballooning yields on domestic bonds. Rebecca Feng reports.

Andreas Petrie, who is thought of as being a key figure in cultivating the Schuldschein market into an established corporate alternative to bonds in Europe, is to retire at the end of the year.

Brockhaus Capital Management (BCM), an investment firm focused on acquiring high growth tech companies, has priced an IPO in Frankfurt raising funds for further acquisitions.

Guarantor: Federal Republic of Germany

Huawei Technologies, sanctioned by the US and now having its participation in the UK's 5G network questioned by the government, looked into raising hundreds of millions of euros in the Schuldschein market two years ago. But concern that buyers would freeze at a groundswell of negative news, whipped up in part from the US, scared the Chinese company off taking the risk. Its increasing isolation in major European countries means it is unlikely to use its capital markets any time soon.

Delivery Hero, the German online food ordering marketplace, has returned to the equity-linked market six months after its debut to issue a jumbo €1.5bn dual-tranche convertible bond to fund M&A opportunities.

BMW Automotive Finance bagged Rmb8bn ($1.14bn) from a three tranche auto loan ABS transaction on Tuesday. The deal was priced tightly despite difficult market conditions in China.

At the end of June GlobalCapital and DZ Bank brought together some of Germany’s leading public sector bond issuers to discuss the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on their capital markets activities. Four months after the crisis began to be felt in Germany, representatives of the country’s development banks and Länder have come through the initial panic and reaction stage and are now beginning to understand more fully the extent of the damage the disease has caused to the economy and just how much their day-to-day lives have changed.