Nordics

Sparebanken Vest (SparVest) on Thursday became the fourth Norwegian bank to publish a green bond framework and one of the first to publish a framework that is aligned with the European Union’s proposed standards for green bonds.

Sweden broke new ground on Wednesday by selling a new 10 year bond with a negative yield for the first time. Investors are pouring into haven assets amid mounting concerns over both the domestic and global economies.

Participants in the financial institutions bond market had expected that issuers could hit screens with new transactions as early as this week, but so far macroeconomic and political uncertainty has discouraged them from putting investor appetite to the test this summer.

Volumes are growing across the spectrum in the Scandinavian MTN markets, as issuers and bankers return from their summer holidays. Meanwhile, bankers are expecting Scandinavian investors to move further out along the credit curve in response to negative yields as dovish Nordic central bank tones could lead to a bullish Scandinavian market.

This week's scorecard looks at the progress Nordic agencies have made in their 2019 funding programmes.

Finland’s Municipality Finance is hoping to receive increased demand for its bonds from insurance companies, following a recent amendment to the Solvency II regulation.

A rates and structured sales banker at NordLB has resigned and will taking a job in the treasury department of Ålandsbanken, a bank headquartered in the Åland Islands, an autonomous region in Finland.

Oriflame, a Swedish cosmetics company, attracted emerging markets accounts to its buyout bonds on Wednesday selling the dual tranche deal inside price guidance.

Borr Drilling Ltd, the Norwegian oil and gas drilling services company, has completed its secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Raising $46.5m of fresh capital and diversifying its shareholder register following a $645m debt refinancing in June.

One of the smallest supranational issuers has returned to the public markets for the first time since 2017 to make its Norwegian krone debut.

Investors have looked towards structured and long dated notes in their hunt for yield as the summer break creeps closer.

KommuneKredit returned to triple-A status with Standard & Poor’s on Wednesday, after it was downgraded a notch last summer following an overhaul of the rating agency's credit scoring methods for non-US public sector agencies.