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South African chemicals and energy company Sasol has released initial price thoughts on a dual tranche dollar bond on Thursday morning in London.

Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait revived its AT1 on Wednesday, having postponed the deal following a roadshow in March this year. But a modest deal size priced in the middle of final guidance left bankers away from the deal saying appetite did not look overwhelmingly strong.

Islamic Development Bank printed its $1.3bn five year Reg S sukuk on Wednesday inside its own curve.

Toyota may be a familiar name in the corporate bond markets, but Toyota Motor Finance Netherlands BV stepped out of the shadow of some of its parent company’s better known subsidiaries to issue its first benchmark bond in a major currency.

According to a report by asset manager BlackRock, global exchange traded products saw a consistent inflow into fixed income funds in the first eight months of 2018. Within fixed income products, investment grade corporate bonds saw equally consistent flows, while high yield corporate bonds saw two consecutive months of inflows after six months of outflows. The inflows extend to high yield markets too, which is doing nothing to aid the fight against looser covenants.

Dubai headquartered ports authority DP World is guiding the market for a 10 year dollar sukuk, a 30 year 144A/Reg S dollar bond, an eight year 144A/Reg S euro bond and a 12 year sterling bond.

Japanese issuers are not frequently seen in the European corporate bond markets, but this week could have two companies going head to head with benchmark euro transactions. Japan Tobacco will sell its first new issues in Europe, while Toyota is better known to investors on the continent.

The name Covivio Hotels is new to the corporate bond markets, however the company behind the brand is not. Formerly known as Foncière des Murs, the hotel investment company sold its first bonds under its new name on Monday.

Germany’s largest gas transmission system operator Vier Gas wasted no time on Monday in launching a €500m 10 year corporate bond deal it had marketed to investors last week. The demand it received justified that move.

French polling and market research firm Ipsos issued its first public corporate bond on Friday, following an investor update, but the responses the company received on the call were inconclusive.

The European Central Bank was confident enough in the state of the European economy to confirm on Thursday that it will cut its monthly bond purchases from €30bn to €15bn from October and that it still expects to close the programme at the end of 2018. While some credit traders welcome the move, others are worried that secondary market liquidity in corporate bonds is already starting to decline, writes Nigel Owen.

Italian multi-utility Iren highlighted the improving sentiment around Italian corporate bond issuers when it priced a €500m seven year green bond 15bp tighter than where similarly rated peer 2i Rete had printed a non-green deal the previous week.