Italy

Two block trades have been launched in Europe this evening (Monday March 21), in shares of Iren, the Italian multi-utility group, and IMCD, the Dutch speciality chemicals distribution company. While IMCD has been the subject of three previous block trades, there have been none in Iren, according to Dealogic.

Banco Popolare and Banca Popolare di Milano may look to raise further capital as the two banks close in on agreeing a final merger plan with the European Central Bank this week.

Italian TV producer Giglio Group's €3.5m minibond began trading on the Milan-based ExtraMOT Pro exchange this week — showing that the market is still finding issuers, despite the European Central Bank's efforts to boost bank lending.

Intesa SanPaolo captured the robust improvement in peripheral market sentiment following the European Central Bank’s meeting last week with its €1.25bn seven year.

Eurozone periphery sovereigns are stamping down their borrowing costs at auctions amid a wave of dovish central bank actions — but one sub-sovereign in the region stands alone in suffering a sharp rise in its yields.

Italy will bring the next line of its domestic inflation linked BTP Italia product in three weeks, sticking with a similar process to its last issue.

Intesa SanPaolo has captured the strong improvement in peripheral market sentiment with its €1.25bn seven year covered bond issued on Friday which attracted the highest order book of the year. At the same time Sparebanken Sør Boligkreditt has mandated leads for its debut covered bond.

TeamSystem, the Italian business software vendor, has funded the entire €600m of debt for its leveraged buyout by Hellman & Friedman with privately placed bonds — an event some high yield bankers and investors see as impressive, but not necessarily starting a trend.

Ten of the 11 banks that underwrote Saipem’s €3.5bn rights issue sold the bulk of their remaining overhang in the stock in a block trade on Monday night, making a gain. But Banca Imi decided to take the riskier path of selling its holdings by itself at a later date.

All but one of the banks that underwrote Saipem’s €3.5bn rights issue, and were left holding €427m of the Italian oil and gas engineering group’s stock, are selling down their stakes tonight.

Two of Italy’s popolari banks have registered to be listed on the Italian stock exchange and, with two others entering advanced merger talks on Tuesday, the country finally looks to be making headway on the banking reforms passed last year.

UniCredit was largely absent from the euro senior market last year, but, having successfully priced a new seven year last Friday, the bank’s head of group finance expects a busier year in 2016.