Germany

As the end of 2016 approaches, borrowers are turning to the green market for their remaining funding, with a pair of SSA borrowers returning to the syndicated market for socially responsible investment products on Thursday.

The European Central Bank’s politicised decision to allow bail-inable German senior unsecured debt to be eligible for repo, whilst denying the same rights for everyone else, is untenable.

Public sector borrowers have hardly skipped a beat in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory, getting back on track with an NRW.Bank green bond mandate hitting screens on Wednesday.

The German Pfandbrief issuer quickly executed a €500m 10 year mortgage backed deal on Tuesday hours before US election headlines hit the screens, even though it had not been in the market since 2012.

Banks may lose out to other market players in competition to buy Commerzbank’s structured investment and ETF businesses, which will be on the market from next year, once they have been carved into a new entity. But investment banks are likely to be in pole position for the German bank’s exotic FICC derivatives book, also up for sale.

Shares in ProSiebenSat.1 Media, the German television, radio and publishing group, closed 7.4% lower on Friday after it completed a surprise €515m capital increase to finance future digital acquisitions and strengthen its balance sheet.

Europe’s largest laboratory services company, Synlab, on Friday shot a new bond into the European high yield market deal to repay all of its 2022 floating rate notes.

Despite the damage done to this autumn's IPO season, with a string of deals pulled and several trading badly, there is still a handful of flotations in the market, and ECM bankers believe they have a chance of success, writes Aidan Gregory.

Real money sellers were seen in recently issued Italian covered bonds on Thursday, along with some profit-taking at the long end of the French curve, which is expensive to OATs. But with German Pfandbriefe looking cheap relative to Laender, the bonds look well supported, bankers said.

Varta AG, the German micro-batteries manufacturer spun out of the historic Varta Group in 2002, has joined the small group of European companies braving the choppy waters of the IPO market.

Private equity firm Ardian has turned to the leveraged loan market to fund its acquisition of German lighting provider SLV Holding from Cinven.

Clearstream launched the China Bond Link on October 17, which is designed to connect overseas investors with the China interbank bond market. The firm expects to see growing interest in China fixed income as a result of broader RMB adoption, a spokesperson for the central securities depository told GlobalRMB.