Germany

Numerous press articles in recent years have predicted the death of single name credit default swaps. Onerous capital requirements, costly changes in market structure and alternative hedging tools have all been cited as factors driving the inexorable decline in the product.

The IPO of Innogy, RWE’s renewables, retail and grids business, is set to be priced in the top quarter of its initial range and is covered at the maximum deal size.

Saxony-Anhalt increased the size of a new three year dollar deal on Wednesday after squeezing pricing tighter twice during two days of marketing.

The European Central Bank (ECB) confirmed senior unsecured bonds subject to statutory subordination would be eligible as collateral next year, clearing up an important question posed by Germany’s approach to making bail-in possible.

Deutsche Bank, its balance sheet and the market it operates in are worlds away from where major financial institutions stood in 2008 — so those scaremongering either have their own incentives for doing so or should know better.

OfficeFirst Immobilien, which owns a German office portfolio spun off by IVG Immobilien, has opened the books for its Frankfurt IPO, with a price range that could value it at up to €1.82bn.

Intense fear about Deutsche Bank’s capital position has once again threatened to mess with the best laid plans of Europe's banks. But the once bulging subordinated bond pipeline may not have emptied out entirely, and that suggests investors are still willing to buy bank bonds.

There was a cheerful mood in European equity capital markets throughout September, despite clear risks of volatility on the horizon and the IPO of Telxius falling into difficulty. The health of the market was highlighted this week by the success of a €2.5bn capital raising by Steinhoff, the South African retail group.

NordLB decided to pull a seven year senior transaction from the market on Tuesday, as speculation about Deutsche Bank’s health hit financial credit spreads and dampened investor sentiment.

Deutsche Bank is not simply too big to fail, it is too big to function. It's time to shrink.

The London Stock Exchange this week moved to deflect a mounting list of European Commission concerns about its proposed merger with Deutsche Börse by saying it would consider selling off its LCH SA French clearing business.

Steinhoff, the South African retail group, has completed a €2.45bn capital increase supported by one of South Africa’s richest men, Christoffel Wiese, and the Public Investment corp, of which €556m was raised through an accelerated bookbuild which ended up being nearly four times oversubscribed.