KfW

KfW hit screens with a five year dollar benchmark on Tuesday that is offering the issuer’s widest swap spread at the tenor in several years, which bankers away from the mandate attributed to negative swap spreads and market-wide volatility last week.

This week's funding scorecard looks at the funding progress of European supranationals and agencies

KfW has made an internal promotion to replace its former head of new issues Petra Wehlert, who became head of capital markets at the German agency on February 1.

Bankers say that five years appears to be the right point in euros in a week in which a raft of issuers hit the books.

Two new working groups of the Green Bond Principles will begin work next week, on defining greenness and on impact reporting. The move is part of the green bond market’s effort to define itself more clearly, partly in the hope that governments might ultimately subsidise it.

KfW and the European Investment Bank nipped in with one-day executions on Thursday, raising €1bn apiece in what has been a turbulent week.

While markets have been badly affected by a mixture of worrying economic data from China, falling commodity prices and a continued slump in many emerging markets, the SSA market looks solid.

FMS Wertmanagement has added £150m to a two year benchmark due to mature in April 2018.

The Inter-American Development Bank has printed a £250m December 2019 bond that has set a new record for year-to-date supranational and agency sterling issuance.

Both KfW and the Council of Europe hit the books in sterling-denominated deals that raised £300m apiece.

Supranational and agency borrowers have long anticipated a wave of demand from American investors as US government sponsored enterprise issuance dwindles. But this week there were concrete signs that the dollar bond market has shaken off the problems that prevented the big switch. Craig McGlashan reports.

A healthy euro benchmark pipeline is building for next week, with one supranational looking to print and a pair of sovereigns believed to be considering deals, after a week that didn’t finish as strongly as it started for core issuers.