Germany

Scout24 on Monday launched the bookbuilding phase of a Frankfurt initial public offering that could value the car and home sales website company at between €2.9bn and €3.5bn.

Covestro, the polymers division of Bayer, began bookbuilding on Monday for its early October initial public offering, which is intended to raise €2.5bn, entirely from the issue of new shares.

Volkswagen's bonds widened as much as 35bp today (Monday September 21), after the company shocked markets by admitting it had deceived US regulators over pollution emissions from diesel vehicles.

Daimler, the German auto company, has come to market with the first sterling offering by any borrower since August, albeit in the modest form of a £125m tap.

Covered bond issuers failed to take heed of poor market conditions and, just like lemmings, followed one another with poorly performing deals this week.

NordLB

LBBW

Commerzbank

A trio of European public sector issuers tapped Kangaroo and Kauri deals on Wednesday as bankers bemoaned the shortage of larger deals in Australian dollars.

The sharp fall in commodity prices over the past 12 months has placed the energy sector under increased scrutiny from credit investors. But it tends to be exploration and production firms, as well as mining companies, that have borne the brunt of negative sentiment. Utilities often benefit from lower prices in raw materials and their spread performance over the last year has been typical of the sector’s defensive status.

Deutsche Kreditbank just managed to raise €500m of eight year funding on Tuesday with a public sector pfandbrief. The transaction only just managed to get over the finishing line but in the current ‘dull and shaky’ market conditions, this was good enough.

The euro pipeline for SSAs is fit to burst amid strong conditions, with a trio of issuers hitting screens on Monday and at least one borrower set to come with a deal later in the week.