LBBW

LBBW and JP Morgan have claimed first execution of an electronically negotiated euro short-term rate (€STR) swap transaction, on Bloomberg’s UK multilateral trading facility (BMTF).

Landesbank Baden-Württemberg has long held the crown as the top Schuldschein arranger, but even as the market internationalises the Stuttgart-based bank has retained its ability to cope with deal flow, as well as push the market beyond its usual borders.

German car parts maker ZF Friedrichshafen has closed its Schuldschein on Friday, and is about to decide how big to make the deal. ZF's €2.2bn issue in November 2014 is the biggest deal the market has ever seen — but several sources believe this transaction may be bigger.

Crédit Mutuel Arkéa has become the third European bank in 10 days to sell its first social bond, weighing into an under-serviced part of the market for socially responsible investors.

Islamic Development Bank on Wednesday priced a five year sukuk bond, coming to market alongside Samba, a Saudi Arabia based bank. The deals are the latest in a flood of Middle East issuance that has raised $13.35bn this week alone.

Investors bid a warm welcome to a heap of new bonds from financial institutions this week, spurred on by the knowledge that the European Central Bank would soon be back as one of the biggest buyers in the market. Bill Thornhill and Tyler Davies report.

LBBW joined CaixaBank is raising social bond funding in the euro market this week, but the German lender struggled to build up demand and tighten pricing for its €500m deal.

The European Investment Bank and Nordic Investment Bank kept the strong momentum going in the SSA euro bond market on Wednesday, capitalising on the European Central Bank’s announcement of fresh stimulus last week and a lack of issuance over the summer. However, Joint Laender's deal was only just oversubscribed, which the leads attributed to investors’ hesitance to buy a negative yielding 10 year bond from a less liquid name.

Fresh from the announcement of a new stimulus package by the European Central Bank last week, investors stormed into the euro public sector bond market on Tuesday, led by KfW and Bpifrance. The latter printed €1.25bn, equaling its biggest ever single issue. The strong momentum is set to continue with a string of mandates, including two supranationals for Wednesday.

LBBW issued a well subscribed €650m nine year public sector loan-backed Pfandbrief on Monday at a relatively tight new issue concession compared with many recent negative yielding covered bonds.

Volumes in other syndicated loan markets may be down, but bankers in the Schuldschein market have rather more to crow about. Derided though it may be for being antique and parochial, it has nonetheless managed to attract an impressive number of debut entrants this year and is set to break the record volumes of 2017.

Credit Suisse was marketing a 10 year bullet senior bond on Tuesday, avoiding negative yields by choosing a tenor longer than seven years. At the same time, Sparebank 1 announced it was readying its green debut in senior format.