Intesa Sanpaolo

Italian borrowers see almost €4bn combined demand despite cash leaving asset class

Investors pile into Tuesday deals despite growing Evergrande contagion possibility

SLB champion prints biggest SLB in euros as Gasunie lines up

Volkswagen Financial Services, the financing arm of the German car maker, blew the cobwebs off the high grade corporate bond market on Thursday, as Becton, Dickinson and Co lines up a quadruple tranche trade for next week.

Eurizon, the asset management business owned by Intesa Sanpaolo, has hired Federica Calvetti from Deutsche Bank to lead its ESG and strategic activism team in Milan.

Leasys, an Italian car rental company, and similarly rated commercial property investor Lar España Real Estate competed for investor attention on Thursday with debut green deals, in a major test for the type of esoteric issuers that typify the slower summer market.

A2A, the Italian utility, has signed a €500m sustainability-linked revolving credit facility, as the company shifts large parts of its capital structure to key performance indicator-driven pricing.

The disparity between ratings and spread levels was highlighted in the euro high grade corporate bond market on Wednesday, after German conglomerate JAB Holdings opened books on a deal 40bp wide of lower rated Italian utility A2A, despite the same maturity and size.

Europe’s high grade corporations are lining up bond issues in euro and sterling for this week, which could be the last before the market slows down for a summer break. Meanwhile, analysts and investors agree that there is considerable room for borrowers to sharply ramp up primary market activity in the next session.

Prada, the Italian fashion house, has completed an amend and extend operation on its main bank revolving credit facility. Lenders say similar deals will make up the bulk of their business for the rest of the year.

UniCredit plans to make labelled financing a regular part of its funding across the group, following the launch of its debut labelled bond this week. Its first deal proved popular as it stacked up more than €3.25bn of demand.

Vinci, the French concessions and construction company, had Europe’s high grade corporate market to itself on Wednesday, with the borrower having an easier time slashing its spread for 10 year money during bookbuilding than lower rated issuers in recent days.