Germany

Berlin Hyp opened books for a €500m seven year green transaction on Monday, as it looked to become the first bank to offer green bonds in two asset classes.

The fledgling green covered bond market is likely to be a promising growth area, with efforts to standardise eligible mortgage loans expected to pave the way for lenders across Europe to issue deals, said panellists at Thursday’s Euromoney covered bond conference.

GlobalCapital is delighted to announce the winners of The Cover Awards 2016 to mark the successes of those in the covered bond market over the last year. The awards were presented in Düsseldorf last week at the Euromoney/ECBC Covered Bond Congress. Congratulations to all the winners, commiserations to the runners-up and thanks to all who took part.

Rating: Aa1/AA-

Bayer clinched a $66bn agreement to buy Monsanto this week, forming a global leader in farming technology and promising a shower of capital markets transactions that will test debt and equity markets — but may also delight them.

The grins on the faces of Werner Baumann and Hugh Grant, chief executives of Bayer and Monsanto, look genuine enough. The deal they have struck could catapult Baumann to head of the world’s leading agribusiness company and net Grant a reported $226m.

Deutsche Bahn was alone in the euro investment grade corporate bond market on Thursday, as it printed a €500m 12 year transaction on a soft day in financial markets.

Debt collector Lowell GFKL — formed by a merger between the UK’s Lowell Group and Germany’s GFKL Group in late 2015 — hit the road to entice investors into its floating rate notes, which it will use to add a third company to the group, Germany’s Tesch Inkasso.

Bayer, the German life sciences company, has clinched an agreement with the board of Monsanto to buy the US company for an enterprise value of $66bn, to be financed with one of the largest rights issues in history.

On Wednesday, Bayer said that five banks have agreed to provide the hefty bridge loan for its $66bn acquisition of US agrochemicals specialist, Monsanto. But the $57bn deal is not yet being syndicated, according to one of Bayer’s relationship banks.

Rentenbank updated its on-the-run 10 year Kangaroo year note on Wednesday, trying to keep Asian investors interested in this key area in the borrower's funding programme.

HSH Finanzfonds printed its first ever public bond on Tuesday, attracting strong enough demand for two rounds of price tightening.