Nomura

Will euros or dollars dominate SSA bond issuance in the second quarter? Debate over the direction of primary markets broke out this week with issuers scheming arbitrage trades in euros, while others believe the dollars will win out. Craig McGlashan reports.

European Stability

Covered bond primary activity slowed this week with just two €500m seven year trades emerging from banks in the Netherlands and Italy.

A trio of issuers in euros joined the sole dollar SSA benchmark deal this week in a flurry of pre-holiday activity, with a banker away from the this week's action remarking that the terrorist attacks in Belgium were likely to have a limited effect on SSA deals.

Unédic and the European Stability Mechanism nipped in ahead of the Easter holiday to print euro benchmarks, in seven and 20 year tenors, respectively.

Nomura has hired eight bankers for its newly established branch office in South Africa.

Unédic and the European Stability Mechanism are set to price euro deals this week, taking advantage of a window before the start of the Easter holidays later this week.

GlobalCapital announces the results of its Equity Capital Markets Awards for 2015, following our inaugural ECM Awards Dinner, in London on March 16.

South Korea’s Kia Motors Corp is finally looking to make a comeback to the dollar bond market after an absence of five years and has mandated banks to prepare a proposed 144A outing.

Bridon Bekaert has allocated its €250m acquisition loan at the early bird stage, with no further syndication required.

Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten brought a 10 year dollar benchmark this week that sparked much debate about whether other issuers would be able to follow in the tenor. Although with a flurry of other trades this week, it is clear that other options are available once next week’s US Federal Reserve meeting is held.

Keihan Electric Railway Co joined on Thursday in the recent spate of Japanese convertible issues sold outside Japan. Like Fuji Machine Manufacturing Co’s deal the previous day, the bond was a debut CB issue, and will be used entirely to finance a share buyback the following day.