JP Morgan

With the year not two months old, seven leading equity capital markets banks have got saddled with what is understood to be at least €50m each of Saipem shares, after the rump of its rights issue failed to sell.

The European Stability Mechanism has picked banks to sell a 10 year benchmark and a tap of its €1bn December 2055 bonds, amid a strong window for duration plays in euros, said bankers.

Svenska Handelsbanken has chosen three banks to work on its first Kangaroo bond since 2014.

Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings (CKI) is on track for a comeback to the dollar hybrid bond market, while India’s National Thermal Power Corp kicked off bookbuilding for a 10 year Reg S offering on Monday.

The extraordinary versatility of convertible bonds — but also the market’s unpredictability — were highlighted on Thursday when Vodafone launched an unprecedented £2.88bn bond designed to achieve the near impossible: debt-like funding that counts as equity but is not dilutive to shareholders, writes Jon Hay.

Apple's $12bn nine-tranche bond this week has not only kick-started a US corporate bond market that had been drained by weeks of volatility, but also signalled the beginning of a wave of supply from US issuers that is expected to hit European shores.

Banca Popolare di Vicenza came a step closer to launching its listing and capital increase this week, as it announced the date of a shareholder meeting to approve the deal.

JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, bookrunners of Vodafone’s unprecedented £2.88bn mandatory convertible bond, have just gone out with a message saying the book for the deal is covered. The book will close at 7.45pm London time.

Thames Water priced a £300m senior secured no-grow bond on Thursday, clinching the deal after two weeks of volatility in its outstanding bonds.

US biotechnology company Amgen made its dash into primary corporate bond markets on Thursday with a dual tranche deal that took €2bn out of the market.

High yield bankers insist that the European market will not be paralysed by some of the banks holding debt they have been unable to sell, even after the failure of last week's €1.55bn financing for LeasePlan.

(updated with more detailed analysis 2.20pm) Vodafone is today issuing an unprecedented £2.88bn mandatory convertible bond, with many innovative features, that combines aspects of two recent trends in the market: the equity-neutral CB and the subordinated, equity-accounted deal.