Germany

Rentenbank printed a May 2021 sterling deal on Wednesday as bankers said that receding fears over the possibility of a British exit from the European Union were driving confidence in sterling.

The world’s largest salt producer, K+S AG, has signed its first Schuldschein, a €600m deal.

Deutsche Bank will begin a roadshow next week for a euro denominated tier two transaction, with uncertainty remaining over European authorities’ fondness for additional tier one as regulatory capital.

A flurry of public sector issuers have taken the market by surprise in a week many expected would see issuance sapped by a combination of international holidays.

KommuneKredit and the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (Land NRW) joined NRW.Bank in lining euros deals on Tuesday in a week bankers had expected to be hobbled by holidays.

LBBW, OP Mortgage Bank and The Mortgage Bank of Finland took little time to sell their benchmark euro deals as, despite the relatively meagre yields on offer, the bonds offered a substantial spreads compared to negative yielding German government bonds.

The low interest rate environment is causing investors to look at longer and longer paper in search of yield. Issuers are seizing the chance for long funding with private placements.

Berlin Hyp has increased the volume of mortgages eligible for its Grüner Pfandbrief, or Green Pfandbrief, by more than 50%, suggesting a second deal from the lender could soon be on its way.

German bonds may be the tightest asset class in the covered universe, but their relative value has improved lately and the market looks cheap relative to Bunds and French covered bonds, say analysts at Citi research.

Funke Mediengruppe, the German media group, has agreed an extension to its loan facilities, in one of the few amend-and-extend operations so far in 2016.

The German lender paid no premium for its sub-benchmark sized Pfandbrief, issued on Tuesday.

Andreas Dombret, executive board member of Germany’s Bundesbank, last week rejected claims that post-crisis regulation has significantly increased costs for banks and rendered bank lending less profitable.