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Slovenia hit screens with the first sovereign bond of 2019 on Monday, undergoing some price discovery but closing a successful deal and paving the way for other countries to follow suit.

French telecoms operator Orange ensured the cobwebs were blown off the corporate bond market on Tuesday when it launched the first multi-tranche offering of 2019, which included the longest tenor of the year to date and the year’s first sterling corporate bonds in its four tranches.

Guotai Junan International Holdings paid a premium over the curve of some of its Chinese brokerage peers for a $200m bond on Monday.

The dollar market for public sector borrowers begins in earnest on Wednesday with a pair of borrowers out with benchmarks and bankers confident the deals will go well thanks to a demand/supply imbalance. The trades follow a small floater tap from a supranational on Monday that was the first syndicated deal of the year in the currency.

FMS Wertmanagement was quick to execute its inaugural Sonia-linked bond on Monday amid strong sterling floater demand. That hunger is showing no signs of abating, with International Finance Corporation looking to follow with its own debut Sonia bond on Tuesday.

The European Financial Stability Facility rebooted the euro public sector market on Monday with an intraday execution ahead of what SSA bankers expect to be a busy week for supply. Belgium and KfW are already on screens for benchmark trades in the 10 year part of the curve.

The Slovenian government is out with a 10 year euro bond issue on Monday, which will be priced later today. Bankers away from the deal say the highly rated issuer is a good soft test of investor appetite for CEEMEA debt.

As is becoming traditional in the European corporate bond market, car finance issuers sold the first new issues of the year. The fact the market had to wait just one day was a positive, considering that the backdrop was largely unchanged from the end of 2018, when the market had been difficult to access. However, there were some warning signs other issuers will do well to heed.

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The European Investment Bank and KfW comfortably raised a combined £2.25bn on Thursday after receiving whopping investor demand for benchmark trades. This Friday is set to add to the sterling glut, with deals from the Asian Development Bank, Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten and Swedish Export Credit Corporation.

The European corporate bond market had to wait just one day for the first new issue of 2019. Some participants had expected volatility in the global financial markets to result in a blank first week for corporates, but finance subsidiaries of Renault and Toyota opted to start their financing for the year on Thursday.

Several Chinese borrowers ventured into the bond market at the end of December, locking up last-minute deals that were mainly supported by anchor orders.