Italy

This week’s encouraging run of equity block trades continues this evening (Wednesday September 9) with a sale of 10% of Inmobiliaria Colonial, the Spanish property company, worth about €190m.

UniCredit Italy became on Monday the first Italian bank to break through the mid-swaps barrier with a covered bond, but it needed to employ its lead managers’ balance sheets to do it.

The Euromoney Smaller European Companies Index Series currently comprises 1350 companies across 16 European countries.

Cariparma Crédit Agricole printed a €1bn June 2023 mortgage-backed bond on Tuesday. The healthy new issue premium offered by the issuer suggests investors are demanding more of a premium following the glut of supply recently.

Citigroup has hired Giacomo Ciampolini, the equity capital markets block trade specialist on Goldman Sachs’s syndicate desk. He will have a dual role as head of Italian ECM and working on accelerated bookbuilds.

UniCredit Italy has become the first Italian bank to break the mid swaps barrier, pricing a €500m five year floating rate deal at three month Euribor +7bp, which equated to 3bp through on a mid swaps basis.

A trio of covered bond issuers offered seven year deals on Monday with Banca Popolare di Milano, Société Générale and Lloyds selling deals from a variety of jurisdictions. While each deal printed with appropriate premiums, the high level of supply has meant that investors were more discerning, resulting in slower bookbuilds.

Caja Rural De Castilla-La Mancha, UniCredit Italy and Banca Popolare di Milano named leads for prospective euro covered bond benchmarks. The two Italian deals are likely to emerge next week but the Spanish deal will not follow until after a roadshow.

Investors’ reaction to the news that Italy will follow Germany in subordinating senior bondholders to corporate deposits has been made difficult to judge by a wider sell-off in FIG bonds.

Banco Popolare (BPIM) has obtained the approval of investors to remain the account bank on its own covered bond programme, even though this will result in those covered bonds being downgraded to a sub-investment grade rating.

Italy’s short term borrowing costs hit a euro-era record low on Wednesday — but, despite a bail-out deal between Greece’s government and creditors looking imminent, the country’s costs failed to move at a bill auction on the same day.

The privatisation IPO of Poste Italiane, set to be one of the highlights of the ECM calendar in the second half of 2015, took another step forward on Tuesday when the company filed its request for listing to Borsa Italiana and its prospectus to Consob for approval.