Germany

German chemical company Evonik hit the reopened European investment grade corporate bond market at pace on Tuesday, as it sought financing for its €3.5bn acquisition of US industrial gas provider Air Products’ speciality and coating additives business.

A trio of issuers on Tuesday mandated for dollar deals across the shorter end of the curve, as underlying US Treasury yields stayed slightly elevated after last Friday’s meeting of central bankers in Jackson Hole.

ANZ New Zealand and Natixis Pfandbriefbank have mandated leads to roadshow euro denominated covered bonds.

A surfeit of supply hit the long end of the covered bond curve this week as issuers piled in to take advantage of extraordinarily cheap funding conditions that are unlikely to last long. Bill Thornhill reports.

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) and Deutsche Börse have submitted their merger plans to European competition regulators, in the hopes of wrapping up the deal in the first half of 2017.

The State of North Rhine-Westphalia sold on Thursday the longest dated benchmark ever from a German state, in a move which may encourage other Laender to follow suit.

The gap to repay a €2.7bn bridge facility that supports HeidelbergCement's purchase of Italcementi is set to close once the former cashes in the sale of its West Virginia factory.

Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten has tapped a June 2024 line, managing to print €400m despite offering a negative yield. Land NRW will sidestep the negative yield problem on Thursday by moving out the curve.

Deutsche Bank returned to covered bonds for the third time this year on Wednesday, extending its curve with a tightly priced 12 year.

Deutsche Bank is set to issue the third German Pfandbrief of the week after mandating leads for an ultra-long benchmark. Meanwhile, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank (PBB) has priced the fifth dollar Pfandbrief of the year.

Sparebank 1 Boligkreditt on Tuesday followed Commerzbank into the covered bond market. By coming 20bp back of Commerz, the Norwegian sale was much smoother.

E.ON’s spinoff of Uniper, its fossil fuels operations, will be completed within weeks as preparations for a listing in Frankfurt near completion, with joint global coordinators JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley potentially first in the queue to handle residual sales of stock over the next three years.