Nordics

OP Corporate Bank came with tight pricing for its first ever green bond on Tuesday. The Finnish lender took just two and a half hours to complete its trade, over three months after it first spoke with investors about a possible transaction.

The Mortgage Society of Finland has mandated leads for a roadshow with a view to issuing a seven year deal. It follows Volksbank Wien which mandated leads last week and precedes a number of issuers expected to announce mandates after emerging from blackout.

Two Nordic telecoms companies sold euro corporate bonds this week after both spending nearly two years on the sidelines. Both employed no-grow strategies, and Swedish company Telia sold the longest maturity corporate bond deal of 2019 so far.

On Thursday, the European corporate bond market saw its second Nordic telecoms new issue of the week. Finnish company Elisa used the same no-grow strategy as its Swedish peer Telia used on Tuesday, but for a smaller deal.

Svenska Handelsbanken picked banks on Wednesday to arrange the sale of a new additional tier one in the dollar market, with the dust yet to settle around Banco Santander’s decision to extend the life of one of its instruments.

On Tuesday, Swedish telecoms company Telia sold the longest maturity corporate bond deal of 2019 so far. Telia had not been to the market for nearly two years, but has a history of long-dated issuance.

OP Mortgage Bank has issued the first Finnish covered bond of the year and did so at the same spread and in larger size than DZ Hyp managed little more than two weeks ago. With 10 year Bund yields heading towards zero, yield starved investors are chasing the market even tighter.

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

Rating: Aa1/AA+/AA+

The theme in the euro public sector market this week was large book sizes despite issuers paying very little concession, with Finland, the European Investment Bank (EIB), Madrid and the Joint Länder all keeping close to their curves.

Tip Trailer, the Dutch trailer services company, has refinanced its revolving credit facility (RCF), ramping the size up to €967m as it gathers funding for a range of growth plans.

Sparebank 1 SMN is ready to become the first Norwegian issuer of senior unsecured debt that complies with the green bond principles. Other banks, after issuing green unsecured deals are expected to issue green covered bonds.