Italy

Financial institution issuers surprised market participants with no deals in the euro market on Monday after a busy period of roadshows. And as the week moves towards the European Central Bank's announcements on Thursday, issuance conditions might not improve.

Enel has completed its exchange offer of new hybrid bonds for old. The process began with a new issue of €300m of 61 year non-call six hybrids, which were priced last week to yield 3.625%.

Thursday’s corporate bond new issue action in Europe confirmed the picture presented on Wednesday: that investors were determined not to let macroeconomic issues bother them, and were piling into new issues. The day was less blemished than the previous one had been by volatility, enabling issuers to get some very tight spreads.

Italian companies planning to launch IPOs in the autumn are keeping a close eye on political developments in Italy. Their ability to sell shares relies as much on political stability as their own financials.

US fund manager BlackRock has pulled the plug on a rescue deal for ailing Italian bank Carige, setting the stage for a difficult political argument over whether to approve yet another costly government bailout.

UniCredit’s chief executive, Jean Pierre Mustier, moved fast this week to sell €1bn of stock in FinecoBank, the Italian bank’s online brokerage, after a decision to deconsolidate the unit. Many in the market see UniCredit's accelerating asset sales as an effort to boost its capital position before exploring M&A opportunities in 2020. Aidan Gregory reports.

UniCredit surprised investors with its speed when it sold a €1bn block in FinecoBank on Tuesday — the same day it announced that it would seek to reduce its stake in the online brokerage.

The formal separation of FinecoBank, the Italian online brokerage, from UniCredit has begun with Italy’s biggest bank selling almost half stake to institutional investors via an equity block trade – a strategy UniCredit has used numerous times in the past to shed non-core assets under its CEO Jean-Pierre Mustier.

FinecoBank may look to boost its leverage ratio with a €200m issuance of additional tier one securities in the coming months, as part of plans for the entity to operate independently from the UniCredit group.

The public sector bond market is braced for S&P’s review of Italy’s credit rating this Friday. Investor analysts said a downgrade would result in a “material widening” of BTPs if the sovereign fell to just one notch above investment grade.

The elimination of Juventus from football's Champions League on April 16 wiped €390m off its market capitalisation by the following morning, highlighting the risks of owning equity in Europe’s premier football clubs.

Nexi, the Italian payments company, has fallen by almost 8% on its first day of trading after its Milan IPO last week. High volume selling at the beginning of the day has hurt the stock.