Italy

Fitch Ratings has lowered Italy’s credit rating one notch to BBB- on Tuesday night, making the move more than two months ahead of its scheduled review in July.

From Italian government bonds to fallen angels, nothing is junk unless the European Central Bank says so.

Italy’s credit rating is dividing analysts. Some believe that it should have been downgraded by S&P on April 24 because of the country's ballooning debt burden, while others felt that the European Central Bank can keep the refinancing risk at bay.

Any concerns over whether the eurozone periphery would have market access after Bund spreads yawned wider during the past week were put to bed by a combined €31bn of borrowing from Italy and Spain. The sovereigns paid what was needed to put impressive dents in their ballooning funding requirements, ahead of a hotly anticipated European Council meeting on Thursday. Lewis McLellan and Tyler Davies report.

Rating: Baa3/BBB/BBB

Telecom Italia and Vodafone have monetised part of their stakes in Inwit, the Italian wireless telecommunications infrastructure company, reopening the market for secondary share sales in Europe.

Analysts have praised UniCredit for taking a conservative approach to dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, after the Italian bank said on Wednesday that it would be making higher loan losses provisions in the first quarter than had been expected by the market.

Any concerns over Italy’s market access were vanquished on Tuesday when the sovereign received €110bn of orders for a dual tranche bond syndication, allowing it to raise €16bn as it makes inroads into its enlarged funding task in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Trading levels given are bid-side spreads versus mid-swaps and/or an underlying benchmark and bid-yields from the close of business on Tuesday, April 21. The source for secondary trading levels is ICE Data Services.

Italy mandated banks for a new five year to be sold alongside a tap of a September 2050 bond on Monday as it prepares to bolt on a bigger funding programme in order to fund its effort against the coronavirus pandemic. The sovereign will be joined by Luxembourg in the euro public sector bond market on Tuesday.

Nexi, the Italian payments company, has sold a debut €500m convertible bond overnight with a simultaneous delta equity placement to circumvent the three month short-selling ban that has been imposed in Italy as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to market sources.

The European Central Bank has been buying Italian government paper well above the pace indicated by the capital key, but has still struggled to keep the beleaguered sovereign’s spread to Bunds in check.