JP Morgan

The public sector euro market’s thundering start to the year stayed noisy on Thursday as a quartet of smaller issuers from across the continent printed oversubscribed deals.

Telecom Italia attracted €4.5bn of orders on Tuesday, which was no mean feat, having to contend with a €4bn four-tranche Orange deal in the market on the same day, but also the uncertainty surrounding the Italian government and its budget hanging over the country’s economy. This, combined with the company’s Ba1/BB+/BBB- ratings, meant it had to offer what research house CreditSights saw as a 90bp premium to its secondary curve for the new 5.25 year deal.

Turkey made its first capital markets foray of the year with a $2bn bond issue on Wednesday. But bankers were divided on the deal's success.

Saudi Arabia's $7.5bn bond, issued on Wednesday, met with little resistance from investors, despite international condemnation of the killing of Jamal Khashoggi at the country's consulate in Istanbul last year. The lead managers built a $27bn book for the deal.

Yapi Kredi sold the first ever public additional tier one (AT1) bond from Turkey on Wednesday, which leads said would act as a benchmark for future issuers from the country despite the deal having been largely sold to the borrower’s shareholders.

China’s Road King Infrastructure nabbed $400m from a bond that was priced 50bp inside of initial guidance, on the back of the largest order book for an Asian deal recently.

The Republic of the Philippines threw open the door for emerging market sovereign issuance for 2019, raising $1.5bn in an outing that offered investors just a small concession. The country’s decision to attract new Chinese investors also paid off, writes Morgan Davis.

Anta Sports Products has launched its €2.2bn loan to back the acquisition of Amer Sports Oyj into general syndication, with HSBC joining the bookrunning group.

Public sector borrowers might switch some of their attention away from a rampant euro market towards dollars, said SSA bankers, after the Inter-American Development Bank and Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations brought strong trades in the currency on Wednesday.

Appetite for eurozone sovereigns is showing no signs of slowing down after Ireland and Portugal joined Belgium this week in scoring their largest ever syndication order books. Several other borrowers sold euro trades on Wednesday, with more supply expected this week as the pipeline has “accelerated” ahead of next week’s parliamentary vote on the UK’s Brexit deal.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on Wednesday became the third public sector borrower to issue an inaugural Sonia-linked bond in 2019, with the deal marking the borrower’s largest sterling bond to date.

Turkey has come to market for a 10 year dollar benchmark, reasserting its status as one of emerging market bonds' most frequent borrowers after a turbulent 2018.