Natixis

The European Financial Stability Facility rounded off its 2019 funding programme on Tuesday, but some on-looking bankers remarked that the deal, though fully subscribed, did not reach the issuer's customary high levels of demand. Meanwhile, Erste Abwicklungsanstalt returned to the euro market for the first time since February 2018.

Intesa Sanpaolo and Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba) gave investors the chance to put money into preferred senior paper on Tuesday. Both trades attracted chunky order books and gave away a small new issue premium.

Egypt is in market promoting a new deal: three tranches of benchmark dollar funding. Its 40 year tranche will be Egypt’s longest ever deal.

Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten included its environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings in a mandate announcement for its upcoming sustainability bond on Monday, following in the footsteps of KfW which kickstarted the movement with its green bond tap last week.

Two SSA borrowers are coming to the market for euro deals on Tuesday. The European Financial Stability Facility and Erste Abwicklungsanstalt will both print what are likely to be their final benchmarks of the year.

Issuers in the financial institutions bond market do not want to see the chance for cheap funding slip, so more are lining up deals. On Monday, Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba) mandated leads for a preferred senior bond in euros, and UK insurer Utmost International said it was aiming for an senior unsecured bond in sterling.

Investors staged a protest over pricing in the non-preferred senior bond market this week, causing one transaction to fail and putting two others at risk of falling flat. Comfortable with their returns for 2019 and happy to be able to choose from a glut of new bond offerings, funds have simply been happy to divert their attention elsewhere. Tyler Davies reports.

La Banque Postale is looking to strengthen its capital position with a new additional tier one bond, beginning investor meetings on Friday. The issuer joins a growing trend towards issuers employing six month par call options in their perpetual securities.

A flurry of new deals this week had issuers having to compete for investors’ attention. Bankers said that higher yielding deals were much easier to sell, with non-preferred senior bonds from Bankia and Lloyds Banking Group proving more popular than a tighter print from Belfius.

Spanish banks are using strong market conditions to their advantage towards the start of November, with Banco de Sabadell completing its annual funding plans this week and UniCaja Banco getting ready to launch its debut tier two transaction.

Finnish agency Municipality Finance has faced a decline in callable MTN issuance this year as investors shun the format and move “more and more towards benchmarks with greater liquidity”, according to funding manager Martin Svedholm.

Banco de Sabadell completed its annual funding plan on Tuesday with a €500m preferred senior bond, adding a call option to the transaction in a clear sign that it is likely to be used as part of the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL).