Italy

Italian gaming company Snai on Tuesday issued a €110m bond to support its acquisition of a domestic competitor, Cogemat.

Two peripheral bank trades on Tuesday offered further proof that the FIG market is once again in rude health. Ibercaja Banco opened books on its long awaited tier two and Banco Popolare opted for a senior five year.

Banca Popolare dell'Emilia Romagna’s (BPER) and Banco Popular Español’s (BPE) five year bonds enjoyed equally good receptions, even though BPER’s Italian covered bond came at half the spread and with a much lower rating than BPE’s Spanish deal.

Italian national airline Alitalia capitalised on an issuance window this week to print its first bond under a new ownership structure, which took effect early this year. The company sold the bond as a private placement, and comes as bankers suggest more corporate borrowers could issue in the format after weeks of sluggish activity in public markets.

A €600m ($663m) two year financing for China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina) has been opened into syndication. Two French lenders are leading the deal and they have invited a select group of banks to participate.

Italian Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A (Monte) has changed the structure of all its outstanding covered bonds from hard bullet to conditional pass through (CPT). The success of the consent solicitation may encourage others to follow.

Moody’s positive rating action on German and Italian covered bonds will help improve structural demand for selective programmes. However, with Fitch still rating many programmes at a lower level the full benefit will be muted.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS) could soon become the fourth bank to issue conditional pass-through covered bonds. It has announced a consent solicitation to amend the maturity structure of its existing soft bullet covered bond programme, which according to Moody’s will result in a rating upgrade.

The covered bonds of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS) rallied by 20bp on Friday as speculation mounted that Fitch would not downgrade the bonds to sub-investment grade, as had been feared.

UniCredit’s covered bond research analyst, Florian Hillenbrand, will move to the buyside as a portfolio manager with UniCredit AG from early May.

Nationwide and Caixabank launched long dated deals on Wednesday. Even though both trades were fairly priced, this part of the curve was heavily supplied. The deals also suffered from a widespread market malaise, partly stemming from renewed concerns over Greece. But Nationwide's was undoubtedly the stronger deal, being more appropriately sized and priced. It was also placed with high quality private investors, in stark contrast to the Spanish deal.

Euro covered bond issuance could be poised to moderate next week, though it is still likely that one or two deals could emerge at short notice. Issuers outside Europe are less inclined to bring euro benchmarks as a change in the basis swap with dollars has reduced the difference in the cost of funding.