Nordics

The results of Italy’s general election on Sunday indicated swelling support for right wing populist ideologies in Italy, but the euro SSA market appears to have accepted the result with equanimity, although only one borrower has popped its head over the parapet so far.

Two SSA borrowers readied trades in the dollar market on Monday, lining up for a busy week of issuance.

This week's scorecard looks at the progress Nordic agencies have made in their funding programmes.

Rating: Aa1/AA+

In the wake of Venezuela’s launch of petro, an oil-backed digital currency under the control of the nation’s central bank, a host of sovereign cryptocurrency products have emerged. For some nations, it is a ploy to circumvent sanctions but, for others, it could provide an important piece of future infrastructure for blockchain based settlement.

Public sector borrowers hit new mid-swap spread tights for the year in dollars this week, but despite the enviable pricing on offer, bankers said that the currency was not offering the kind of super strong conditions that had been on offer last year. That might play in the mind of issuers lining up deals for next week — which is expected to be busy — with bankers saying borrowers might need to offer a little more concession than they have been used to.

The total issuance of investment grade corporate bonds in February was an underwhelming €14.8bn but the property sector has outshone all others in 2018 and this week was no different as investors had further diversification to consider.

Six of the nine investment grade corporate new issues in the last week of February were announced with a three letter acronym that, while providing clarity, served to frustrate investors keen to see greater volumes of issuance. WNG stands for “will not grow” and this week told investors that the meagre sized deals would not be increased, irrespective of demand.

Governments and central banks around the world are announcing plans for state run cryptocurrencies. While some developing countries are keen to do so to circumvent international sanctions, cryptocurrencies from developed countries could form a major part of blockchain settlement infrastructure.

Finnish residential property developer Kojamo and French care home operator Orpea added to the geographical diversity of the property company corporate bonds sold this week with a €500m seven year deal, while frequent issuer RCI Banque sold a dual tranche offering

D Carnegie & Co, Sweden's largest listed residential property developer, is raising capital through a rights issue to expand is investment and development opportunities.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development set a new pricing bar for 2018 in five year dollars on Wednesday as it equalled its largest ever dollar benchmark size. Municipality Finance was also out in the same tenor, with a trade that leads said had a concession of 2bp-3bp.