Germany

French postal operator La Poste saved the corporate bond market in Europe from registering a blank week when it sold its first green bond last Friday. On Wednesday, Deutsche Post followed its peer’s lead by announcing a deal with the same tenor.

UK investors that buy US private placements often struggle to compete with North American investors on price, but their disadvantage could be made worse by Brexit, if, as expected, sterling bond spreads widen.

Germany’s Rheinmetall is in talks to buy a stake in Dutch defence company KNDS, as the European defence sector tries to shelter from the fallout of Brexit.

The last posting date for Christmas tends to coincide with the closing of the euro corporate bond market. Ahead of that coincidence this year, two postal companies have sold new bonds, after Deutsche Post followed La Poste of France’s lead.

French car parts supplier Faurecia has launched a Schuldschein expected to reach a size around €400m to €500m, as attractive euro and dollar spread ranges are planted to attract a wide group of lenders.

Aareal Bank this week returned to the euro Pfandbrief market for the fourth time this year to issue a four year deal, which was priced at its widest spread in four years. The fact Aareal chose to pre-fund suggests that spreads may have further to go.

The head of BNP Paribas’ EMEA unrated debt capital markets team has left the bank.

The US private placement market (US PP) processed two sterling transactions last week, when TSB was forced to pull its prospective covered bond and VW had to pay elevated new issue concessions to access the sterling bond market. US PP agents believe this once again demonstrates the US PP market’s comparative stability against public markets.

UniCredit will likely become the first commercial bank to finish a year in the top two arrangers in the Schuldschein market. As the market internationalises, many believe commercial banks are well placed to challenge the Landesbanks’ grip on deal flow.

The head of NatWest Markets' private placement business has left the bank.

The Federal State of Brandenburg was oversubscribed for its second ever euro benchmark in the 20 year part of the curve on Tuesday. The deal offered a 2bp concession, according to the leads.

A dollar benchmark from Rentenbank scored comfortably higher than a euro trade from the European Financial Stability Facility in the latest BondMarker results. That is in keeping with a few weeks where the dollar market has been far more resilient than a wobbly euro sector.