Italy

A pair of eurozone periphery SSAs are tackling opposite ends of the euro curve this week. Italy will launch a 30 year benchmark on Wednesday, while a Spanish agency drew a doubly subscribed book for a three year.

UniCredit mandated banks to arrange its return to the dollar market in tier two this week, as the Italian bank considers a global approach to tackling its regulatory capital requirements.

The European Commission and the Italian government have reached an agreement in principle to grant Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) a “precautionary recapitalisation”, clearing the way for the Italian government to inject public funds into the troubled Italian bank.

While SSA syndicate bankers maintain that conditions in euros are still good, there was barely any issuance this week as attention turned to next week’s ECB meeting and a potential snap election looming in Italy. Meanwhile, the European Stability Mechanism and European Financial Stability Facility revamped their funding programmes in light of better than expected funding opportunities in the past few months.

Intesa Sanpaolo was unable to tighten pricing for its barely subscribed €1bn 10 year Obbligazioni Bancarie Garantite on Wednesday as mounting political risk in Italy caused a distinct change in sentiment.

Banca IFIS, a specialist bank in Italy, has bought a €190m nominal portfolio of performing and non-performing loans from Barclays.

The Italian Treasury on Thursday bought back €4.2bn of the November 2017 BTP Italia — more than €1bn above its target amount — as part of a syndicated exchange that swapped the bonds for paper maturing in the 2020s and 2030s.

Italy’s BPER Banca has picked five banks to arrange the sale of a new tier two capital issue, as the financial institution bond market looks to open its doors to lower rated banks.

Mediobanca was able to print a €1bn five year floater inside Intesa Sanpaolo’s trading levels on Thursday, as extremely supportive new issuance conditions helped the FIG market glow red hot.

Intesa Sanpaolo cranked pricing in on a new additional tier one (AT1) on Tuesday, striking quickly to take advantage of stellar conditions in the market for bank subordinated debt.

Pirelli, the Italian tyre maker owned by China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina), is pressing ahead with its plan to relist earlier than expected, due to favourable market dynamics.

UniCredit is seeking investors’ consent to substitute Fitch with Moody’s as credit rater of its conditional pass through covered bond programme. The latter requires an issuer to provide less collateral for a similar rating.