Germany

KfW has a slightly smaller funding target next year than for 2017, it said on Monday, as it looked to capitalise on investors’ desire for large, liquid bonds.

Volkswagen Bank GmbH sold sold its first bond for more than three years this week. The banking services subsidiary of German car manufacturer Volkswagen printed a €2bn triple-tranche deal on Wednesday.

The City of Vienna’s long-dated loans are three times subscribed three weeks into the marketing process. As investor appetite grows for longer-dated maturities, corporates are beginning to find luck with the product.

The Austrian subsidiary of Steinhoff issued roughly €650m of Schuldscheine in July 2015 — and, as its shares plunged on Wednesday, over 100 Schuldschein lenders were stuck with little ability to sell the debt. With no majority voting allowed in the Schuldschein market, some question whether the product's lean documentation can cope in headier times.

Repricings and refinancings have dominated this year’s leveraged loan issuance. This week, Apcoa added one more such deal. But investors proved they can still discriminate, as House of HR had to sweeten the terms of its new refinancing loan.

Deutsche Post DHL Group secured excellent terms on Wednesday when it issued a €1bn convertible bond at a negative yield, despite investors having been distracted by a collapse in the share and bond prices of equity-linked regular Steinhoff International on the same day.

The City of Vienna’s loans are three times subscribed three weeks into the marketing process, as investor appetite grows for longer-dated maturities.

On Wednesday, the euro corporate bond market reminded any doubters that it was still very much open for business with five tranches totalling €3bn being priced by three well known issuers.

Investor support for leveraged loan deals where the issuer is only seeking to cut margins remains so strong that some borrowers, such as French real estate group Foncia, may do it twice this year.

Aumann, the German engineering company specialising in wire coiling and e-motors, raised €80m of gross primary proceeds on Monday night, through an accelerated bookbuild, to fund growth and acquisitions.

Eurex Clearing on Tuesday announced that five execution platforms will support a new partnership programme, as it tries to wrest interest rate swap clearing business from London.

Amprion, the German electricity transmission firm, has raised €200m with an issue of Schuldscheine and Namensschuldverschreibungen (NSV) — a similar instrument that is registered and can have a maturity longer than 10 years.