News content

Corporate bond investors in Europe are showing a bit more willingness this week to say no to ultra-tight pricing, but not in sufficient numbers to prevent issuers getting what they want.

Saudi Aramco’s hotly anticipated $12bn bond was priced yesterday with the fanfare investors had expected. Demand for the deal was so large that the sovereign rallied 20bp as the deal printed, but stated final orderbooks of $92bn are being questioned as two investors say only the 30 year tranche is still bid above re-offer. The leads disagree, though, with one saying he saw all the tranches above their pricing levels.

Yorkshire Building Society on Wednesday went to market with an inaugural sterling six year non-call five non-preferred deal after it said it would tender for its 2024 non-call 2019 tier two notes, opening a case for smaller institutions to decrease capital costs by replacing tier twos with senior non-preferred notes.

Alpha Bank Romania plans to issue the first covered bond from Romania under the country’s newly established legal framework.

Arrangers of Reliance Industries’ debut Schuldschein have sent investors a statement saying that demand “considerably exceeds the initial volume” target of €150m. The success of the transaction came as a surprise to some of the arrangers’ competitors, but is considered a good sign for the market.

Société Générale is looking at cutting around 1,600 jobs across the group, while also closing its over-the-counter (OTC) commodities business and proprietary trading firm.

Yorkshire Building Society is looking to buy back a series of tier twos before their first call date, after Coventry Building Society showed last month that the UK regulator was more relaxed than expected around what firms can do with their capital. But rather than replacing the bonds with an instrument of equal standing, Yorkshire is going one step further than its peer and proposing to issue its first non-preferred senior notes.

Saudi Aramco is making a splash with its bond market debut, gathering a staggering $85bn of orders for a six tranche deal expected to exceed $10bn.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is due to hold a beauty parade for its debut bond that is expected to be issued later this year in a dollar global format, GlobalCapital understands.

LG Chem, the chemical and battery producing arm of South Korean group LG, launched its first euro and dollar bonds this week, after a long sojourn in the won market. All three tranches, which were also green bonds, were heavily oversubscribed.

Diageo, the UK distiller and brewer, followed its recent habit and issued a multi-tranche bond on Monday — but with a difference. It included sterling notes for the first time since 1995.

Activist shareholder Edward Bramson’s Sherborne Investors Management has made a detailed critique of Barclays’ markets business in a letter penned to shareholders, saying it did not have enough support from asset management or corporate banking operations to work well.