Italy

Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) issued a €1bn 10 year Obbligazioni Bancarie Garantite (OBG) this week. The deal came with a 2.125% coupon, the highest of any covered bond sold this year.

Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) issued a €1bn 10 year Obbligazioni Bancarie Garantite on a comfortably oversubscribed book on Thursday, paying investors a rare triple digit spread, a coupon of over 2% and a 65bp spread over BTPs. With the European Central Bank expected to cut the deposit rate in December, carry trades are once again back in vogue.

FCA Bank, the financing joint venture of Fiat Chrysler and Crédit Agricole, issued a €500m no-grow bond on Monday.

There were strong signs on Thursday that investors are betting heavily on further monetary policy easing by the European Central Bank, as Italy sold debt at a record low yield.

UniCredit’s profits took a 30% hit in the third quarter, but the drop in core bank earnings was far more modest and its investment bank posted a year-on-year increase.

Italy could sell three year debt at its lowest ever yield on Thursday, with its secondary levels hovering near all-time lows. It would be the second record breaking auction for the sovereign in two days, after it placed one year bills at its lowest ever level on Wednesday.

Istituto Centrale delle Banche Popolari Italiane (ICBPI) sold its €1.1bn PIK note on November 6 in what looked like a comeback week for the high yield bond market — but it turned out to be a short-lived pick-up.

Political risk appeared to be influencing investors’ decision making on Monday, as a trio of eurozone periphery sovereigns underperformed their peers in secondaries. But there was better news for Cyprus, which more than halved its one month borrowing costs at an auction.

FCA Bank, the financing joint venture of Fiat Chrysler and Crédit Agricole, issued a €500m no-grow bond today.

Snam, the Italian natural gas transmission company, priced a €750m eight year bond on Tuesday, its first issue since it was added to the list of bonds that the European Central Bank will buy as part of its public sector bond purchase programme, or quantitative easing.

Six borrowers raised nearly €5bn in the covered bond market this week, once again surpassing supply expectations. The star attraction, notable for both its size and tenor, was a €1.5bn three year from the Norwegian issuer, Sparebank 1 Boligkreditt.

Italian oil and gas company TotalErg has cut the size of a facility and mandated banks in its latest loan refinancing.