Greece

Greece has fired the starting gun on its latest debt rehabilitation effort, after launching a roughly €30bn exchange offer for 20 bonds it issued as part of its restructuring in 2012.

CVC and Ardian charged up the leveraged loan deal pipeline with new buyouts of European businesses in Ireland, Greece and Spain this week. A strengthening European economy is likely to attract more, said market participants.

The European high yield bond pipeline was stuffed with an array of mainly sub-benchmark deals this week, after issuance volume hit a historic high.

Anastasios Ioannidis, general manager of global markets at Eurobank Ergasias’ treasury, speaks to GlobalCapital about his bank’s covered bond, the bank’s competitive advantages, plans for non-performing loan sales and how sustained growth can cure Greece’s debt mountain.

The prospect of Greek banks issuing tier two capital early next year was heightened this week after two more of the country's big four institutions successfully printed covered bonds, writes Bill Thornhill.

Korean Housing and Finance Corporation (KHFC) has opened order books in dollars, Muenchener Hypothekenbank (MuHyp) is set to price a small Swiss Franc deal and Piraeus Bank has finalised terms for its floating rate bond that was mainly placed with supranationals.

Eurobank Ergasias is set to issue its first covered bond some 80bp tight of the Greek sovereign, exactly mirroring the pricing differential that National Bank of Greece (NBG) achieved with its larger trade in the same tenor two weeks earlier.

Eurobank Ergasias has mandated leads for a roadshow, marketing a near replica transaction of National Bank of Greece’s (NBG) three year conditional pass-through that was issued last week.

National Bank of Greece showed this week that a covered bond does not need to have an investment grade rating to be a success. By implication the product has almost unlimited funding potential for a broad swathe of global issuers, particularly those from the emerging markets, writes Bill Thornhill.

Unrated jewellery company Folli Follie debuted in the Swiss franc bond market on Wednesday, having failed in a previous attempt — a sign that retail buyers are becoming more receptive, market participants said.

The National Bank of Greece’s €750m three year conditional pass through (CPT) covered bond does not include an investor put option. Although the programme allows for put options it was not used in this week’s deal and is unlikely to be used in future deals, according to the head of covered bond structuring at UBS which arranged the transaction.

National Bank of Greece’s ability to attract a high oversubscription for its three year covered bond on Tuesday showed it is on the road to recovery. But without sovereign debt relief, the precarious state of Greece’s government finances will continue to blight the economy and its fragile banks.