Norway

Aker BioMarine, a Norwegian fishing company that harvests krill to be used in nutritional products, has already attracted substantial demand for its listing on Norway’s junior Merkur Market; it will look to list on Norway’s main exchange in 2021.

Covered bonds issued by SR Boligkreditt and Vseobecna uverova banka (VUB) this week were well subscribed, reflecting the generous spreads they paid compared to deals by issuers from core Europe.

Deals issued on Thursday by SR Boligkreditt and UniCredit Germany (HVB) illustrated that investor demand is skewed to bonds that offer a pick-up, no matter how small.

This week's scorecard looks at the progress Nordic agencies have made in their 2020 funding programmes in June.

Three SSA borrowers hit the dollar market on Tuesday. The Inter-American Development Bank raised $4bn with a five year while Kommunalbanken tested the waters at 10 years. The World Bank joined them with a small but impressive bond linked to Sofr.

Kommunalbanken is looking to take advantage of the hot demand in the long end of the dollar curve, while the Inter-American Development Bank has chosen a more common maturity in the belly of the curve.

Norway’s Kommunalbanken returned to the domestic New Zealand dollar market after a two year absence on Wednesday with its largest Kauri deal since its debut.

DNB entered 2020 better capitalised than ever, and having taken the opportunity to get ahead with its regulatory funding at the end of last year, it was also better financed than ever. Even so, following the regulator's decision to delay implementation of MREL target by one year, DNB could return to the covered bond market in the latter half of 2020.

Covered bond investors wasted little time in placing big orders on Tuesday for the largest ever green deal issued in Swedish kronor — a five year floating rate transaction secured on energy efficient mortgages from Sparebank 1 Boligkreditt (Spabol). At the same time, Credit Mutuel Arkéa issued a long 10 year with blow-out demand, reflecting a material concern that covered bond supply, net of central bank purchases and redemptions, will be deeply negative this year.

Norway’s debut syndicated tap went off with a bang on Tuesday, attracting a bumper Nkr37bn ($3.7bn) order book. The deal’s success was driven in part by increased demand from foreign investors for Norwegian govvies.

Scatec Solar, one of the few pure play renewable energy companies listed in Europe, has sold Nkr1.96bn ($192m) of new stock to finance investments in green power plants.

The Kingdom of Norway is set to sell its first ever syndicated tap. The sovereign hit screens on Monday with initial price thoughts for the reopening of a 10 year Norwegian krone bond.