HSBC

Wessex Water, the UK utility, proved that there is still demand for sterling corporate paper in a post-Brexit world, achieving almost five times oversubscription for its 15 year bond.

Public sector borrowers soaked up huge demand in the euro market on Tuesday including the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, which printed its biggest ever 100 year bond despite offering a yield of less than 1%.

KfW and Swedish Export Credit Corporation (SEK) achieved strong results in sterling on Tuesday despite extremely volatile conditions in the currency as a result of uncertainty around the impact of Brexit and the rising cases of coronavirus in the UK, which has affected swap spreads and the cross-currency basis swap for non-UK borrowers.

A pair of senior non-preferred bonds from Swedbank and Société Générale on Tuesday followed Monday’s opener from ING. With three household names now having established pricing points, rarer borrowers are starting to fill the pipeline.

The Republic of Slovenia has repeated its 2020 feat of being the first sovereign issuer in CEEMEA to launch a bond by coming to the market with a mandate on Tuesday. Despite the apparent rush for bond funding, however, many believe that EU funding will provide some of what CEE countries would otherwise have taken from public bond markets.

American insurers Metropolitan Life and Athene Holding had a busy start to the year as they tapped the sterling, euro and dollar markets to issue a quartet of funding agreement backed (FAB) securities.

Indian borrowers re-entered the bond market on Monday, led by the Export-Import Bank of India which printed the country’s first dollar deal of 2021.

Hong Kong’s block market surged back to life on Monday night with a flurry of share sales worth a total of HK$14.19bn ($1.83bn).

Chinese property borrowers reopened Asia’s primary dollar bond market on Monday, with four issuers raising nearly $2bn between them following solid demand from investors.

Wessex Water, the Malaysian-owned UK utility, will become the first corporate borrower to hit the sterling bond market since the transition period for Brexit ended. Bankers expect a strong reception.

The European Investment Bank became the first borrower to tap the sterling market in 2021 on Monday, while KfW is set to follow on Tuesday. While the opening deal went well, the issuers had to contend with some sharp volatility.

Public sector borrowers wasted no time in getting back to business in the euro market in 2021 with one live deal and four mandates all hitting screens on Monday as issuers look to take advantage of an almost full trading week and a supportive market to make a dent in their brand new funding programmes.