Germany

The Schuldschein pipeline is filling up fast, and there are rumours that German blue chips, mostly absent last year, are considering returning with benchmark transactions. If that is the case, the Schuldschein market will look to add these chunky transactions to a repeat of last year’s heavy deal flow.

Given the success of the corporate bond market's opening deals of the year, it was perhaps surprising that only one issuer came to market on Thursday, but Daimler achieved similar success to the RCI Banque Wednesday deal that it copied.

A pair of public sector borrowers blew away the cobwebs in the sterling market on Wednesday, printing a combined £1.5bn.

Investment grade corporate bond market players only had to wait one day for the first new deals of 2018. Renault and BMW both brought new paper to market on Wednesday, selling a total of €2.75bn of bonds with little premium.

An optimistic mood is spurring on Europe’s equity capital markets, with a busy quarter expected, particularly for IPOs.

The London Stock Exchange this week reaffirmed its commitment to open access under the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, as major European exchanges and clearing houses (CCPs) were granted exemptions from the requirement until July 3 2020.

Whether MiFID II will affect the Schuldschein market is often discussed in Frankfurt. As collections of bilateral loans, Schuldscheine are exempt from the regulation — leading some to predict a boon for the asset class. But the optimism in some quarters is overdone.

Ireland is set to become the first SSA borrower of 2018 to print a syndicated bond, picking banks for a benchmark deal to be sold on Wednesday. The German state of Lower Saxony will also come to market on Wednesday.

Institutional lenders have participated in the Schuldschein market for decades. But as the market heats up, their offering of long-dated lending with a need for financial covenants has become less sought after. Now the institutions are working out ways to return.

Steinhoff International, the retail conglomerate listed in Johannesburg and Frankfurt, said on Tuesday that its numbers for 2015 were unreliable and that prior years may also need to be restated.

Bankers are predicting the busiest first quarter on record, as the year ahead looks set to reflect the momentum of the last.

Commerzbank is "working on" a replacement for two longstanding FIG syndicate bankers who left the firm just before Christmas.