Intesa Sanpaolo

Corporate bond issuance in euros was busy again on Tuesday, with four deals, but they were moderately sized, so the total was nothing like Monday's haul of €6bn and £1.25bn.

The frenzy of investment grade corporate bond issuance in Europe intensified on Thursday, when eight companies came to market, issuing a total of €6.6bn of paper in euros. That brought the total for the first four days of this week to over €20bn. Despite the heavy supply, issuers have found sufficient demand to support their notes.

MEA-based waste management services provider Averda has amended and extended an existing term loan facility, garnering 70% oversubscription.

Hungarian gas and oil company MOL has extended part of an existing €555m revolving credit facility by one year, in what is one of the few sparks of activity in the country's syndicated loan market so far this year.

Holders of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s €300m 10 year tier two have already been burned in the secondary market, with the price of the bonds having plummeted since their initial sale on July 16.

Russia's largest producer of anthracite coal, Siberian Anthracite, is expected to complete a loan refinancing in September. The deal will see Sibanthracite switch its existing loan facility from dollars to euros, as bankers offer a number of reasons for the switch, including preventative protection from sanctions and the elimination of operational delays.

Terna, the Italian high voltage grid operator, returned to the corporate bond market on Thursday, for the third time this year. It joined a steady procession of Italian companies that have been issuing bonds, taking advantage of the present benign market conditions, with an eye to the risk of volatility blighting their market access in the autumn.

Investors pumped €2.25bn of demand into Italgas’s €600m 10 year note on Wednesday, leaving the deal nearly four times covered. That was despite a soft economic background and the more muted €1bn of demand Goodman European Partnership, the logistics Reit, had got on Monday for its €400m 10 year no-grow bond.

Italy’s Salini Impregilo is pushing ahead with plans to buy compatriot troubled construction rival Astaldi after getting the preliminary nod from financiers, with the acquiring company set to raise €600m among a raft of funding agreements.

Europe's corporate bond market is sauntering towards the holidays at a gentle pace, with spreads slightly wider and no one in a hurry. But deals are still available for issuers that want them.

FinecoBank was more than nine times subscribed for its first ever sale of an additional tier one instrument on Thursday, despite pricing the deal at a level that was lower than what might have been expected for a similar offering from UniCredit, its former parent.

Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, Italy's state railway company, launched a €700m seven year green bond into an otherwise empty corporate bond market on Thursday. The Independence Day holiday in the US kept markets quiet this week, and eager investors may be frustrated next week too.