Natixis

No less than three dual tranche corporate bond deals hit the market on Tuesday, as BMW, Abertis, and AbbVie jostled for the attention of investors with €2bn, €1.5bn and €1.4bn deals.

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.

Germany’s Phoenix Spree has signed a €240m dual tranche term loan, with the UK-listed Berlin real estate investor drawing down the bulk of the new deal.

KfW and Bpifrance were the first public sector borrowers out of the blocks in euros following last Thursday’s European Central Bank meeting in which it unleashed its new comprehensive stimulus package.

Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) has closed its annual refinancing, securing a $1.3bn facility from a range of international lenders. The facility, Cocobod's second international borrowing this year, has tighter margins than last year's round, illustrating a healthy appetite for one of Africa's most frequent borrowers.

In the nervous last day before the European Central Bank's much-hyped monetary policy announcement on Thursday, only two corporate bond issuers brought deals. Both Orange, the French telecoms group, and Worldline, the French payments group carved out of Atos.

Investment grade corporate bond issuance has slowed right down on Wednesday, as issuers and investors are getting cautious before the European Central Bank monetary policy meeting on Thursday.

Corporate bond issuance in euros was busy again on Tuesday, with four deals, but they were moderately sized, so the total was nothing like Monday's haul of €6bn and £1.25bn.

Corporate bond issuers made full use of the last few days before the European Central Bank's much-anticipated announcement on monetary policy on Thursday. Despite the hectic activity of the past two weeks, investors were still oversubscribing deals two or three times.

Commerzbank attracted only €700m of demand for a €500m non-preferred senior bond this week, with a lead manager suggesting the deal showed the ‘state of the market’ as it welcomes an influx of tightly priced supply.

Arié Boleslawski has joined Natixis to run its equities business.

FIG bond bankers are worried, as one put it, that “the steam is coming out of the Kangaroo market” after Thursday’s additional tier 1 (AT1) deal from Société Générale failed to reach the heights of deals from UBS and BNP Paribas earlier in the summer.