Germany

A higher than expected UK inflation rate led to a sell-off in Gilts this week, a move that may put an end to what has been a remarkable run of traffic in sterling SSA bond issuance.

Volkswagen is looking to follow up Thursday’s jumbo euro bond sale with outings in the dollar and hybrid bond markets as soon as the second quarter, the company’s head of group treasury told GlobalCapital.

The European Investment Bank and KfW on Wednesday tapped the long end amid an otherwise quiet euro market.

With just over three weeks to go until Easter, the latest wave of IPOs in EMEA is progressing well. One deal was priced on Tuesday and bookbuilds have begun for two more.

There were four equity block trades in EMEA on Tuesday evening, the largest of which was a capital increase by Carl Zeiss Meditec, the German medical technology company.

Shares in Deutsche Bank, the largest bank in Germany, fell 2.7% on Monday morning after it published its 2016 annual report and launched its €8bn two-for-one rights issue.

Volkswagen is watching for the right moment to return to the public bond market with an issue in its own name, for the first time since its emissions test cheating scandal broke in September 2015.

E.On, the German electricity and gas company, successfully placed €1.34bn of new equity on Thursday night after announcing earlier in the week that it had made a €16bn loss in 2016 due to a writedown of the value of Uniper, the fossil fuels business it span off last year, and costs related to the decommissioning of its nuclear assets.

Rating: Baa1/BBB+

The SSA market is “breathing a sigh of relief”, according to one SSA syndicate banker, as this week's hotly anticipated Netherlands election produced the result capital markets bankers were hoping for.

The sterling market was red hot this week with public sector issuers hitting screens in force, despite a headline heavy calendar.

WL Bank took advantage of strong funding conditions — and a reverse enquiry — to issue a tightly priced 20 year public sector backed Pfandbrief on Thursday, the longest covered bond from Germany this year. The transaction follows the announcement of plans to merge the cover pools of WL Bank and DG Hyp.