Germany

Covered bond new issue premiums fell this week as six issuers raised a collective €5.5bn in three currencies with total demand of almost €8bn.

Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley will provide a €4.4bn bridge loan for German building materials supplier HeidelbergCement to buy Italian competitor Italcementi.

Muenchener Hypothekenbank (MuHyp) has priced one of the tightest covered bonds of the year.

A series of German sub-sovereigns have printed deals in euros this week, adding to hopes that the market for the currency is slowly returning to strength after weeks of difficulty.

Covered bond new issue premiums fell on Tuesday as four borrowers launched deals worth over €2.5bn in total, on collective demand of about €5bn. LBBW’s second deal of the month was priced 1bp tighter than its last bond, even though it was two years longer. Bankia was set to issue at less than half the concession paid by peripheral borrowers last week, while Bank of Montreal and Bank of Nova Scotia were set to price in line with recent Canadian predecessors.

KfW was able to double its minimum target with a rare 20 year bond on Friday, using a tactic that SSA bankers away from the deal believe other issuers could follow over the summer.

The European high yield market this week saw towering deals like SoftBank’s $4.5bn and Synlab’s €1.1bn, but investors also found a place in their portfolios for smaller notes.

Germany dominated covered bond supply this week with four banks raising €2.5bn after collecting orders of nearly €6bn in total.

Ado Properties, the Berlin-focused residential property company, priced its relaunched IPO on Wednesday at the bottom of its price range. The shares fell 2.5% on their debut on Thursday.

Synlab, the German laboratory services provider, is being acquired by private equity firm Cinven. The deal will be partly funded with €1.08bn of high yield debt which was priced on Thursday.

Akbank AG, the Frankfurt based subsidiary of Turkey’s Akbank, has completed a $205m refinancing and increased the syndicate to 19 banks.

Little more than a week after its successful initial public offering, the reprivatized Deutsche Pfandbriefbank issued a €500m five year Pfandbrief that was priced closer than ever to its highly regarded peers, LBBW and Helaba. At the same time, WL Bank issued one of the tightest and most oversubscribed Pfandbriefe of the year.