US food group General Mills sold €200m of short dated notes on Wednesday, in its first sole-led deal since 2017.

KfW, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and, in the medium-term note (MTN) market, a German region and a Finnish agency have kicked off the Norwegian krone market for SSAs. Bankers are hoping to extend krone’s impressive form from last year into 2020.

MTN bankers are tipping Formosa and senior non-preferred debt for big things in 2020. Both markets, along with MTNs as a whole, have had an underwhelming year as issuance failed to live up to the promise of a busy 2018.

Multilateral development banks (MDBs) are increasingly moving into local currency funding. Now medium-term note (MTN) dealers need to dust off their EM currency investor Rolodexes, as this shift offers a much-needed business opportunity for them.

Specialisation could define MTNs in 2020 as the market looks to differentiate itself from public markets where borrowers are easily executing large, cheap, liquid benchmarks. MTN dealers’ change of focus is shaking up the league tables. Frank Jackman reports

SSAs have had their best year in non-core issuance since 2012. SSA issuance (excluding euros, dollars and sterling) is up $3.83bn year on year to $82.95bn year to date. Much of this borrowing — some $32.8bn, according to Dealogic — has come through the MTN market.

Nivaura, a fintech startup, has added automation of EMTNs, commercial paper (CP) and certificate of deposits (CD) issuance to its Aurora platform.

Italy printed an €800m 20 year inflation linked private placement on Thursday, satisfying demand from a single investor.

Dim sum MTN issuance from SSAs reached a record high in 2019, and the growth is set to continue next year. The renminbi’s inclusion in the IMF’s special drawing rights (SDR) basket and global bond indices will ensure growing appetite for the instrument, according to one MTN desk head.

Two French public sector agencies have closed their borrowing programmes for the year below their planned size, with one agency cutting short its funding by almost a third.

Del Canto joins Berman at agora — O'Higgins to retire from ICBC Standard — Miller becomes new IBCM head at Credit Suisse

KfW returned to Polish zloty issuance last Friday after a 13 year absence from the market, as it looks to tap new sources of capital.