Norway

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.

The Norges Bank surprised the market with an unexpected base rate cut to a record low of zero on Thursday. Since the start of the year, coronavirus volatility and wildly gyrating oil prices have buffeted the value of the kroner.

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

Pexip, the Norwegian video conferencing company, has launched its Nkr2.14bn ($206m) IPO on the Oslo stock exchange.

Norwegian video conferencing firm Pexip has shown that there may yet be life in Europe's IPO market, which had been presumed incapacitated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Investors said they are happy to buy new flotations but probably only a select group of companies will be able to come to market.

Norwegian video conferencing company Pexip has been hailed by equity capital markets bankers as an ideal IPO for the times amid a surge in remote working due to the Covid-19 global pandemic.

The oil price slump on Monday spelt trouble for issuers in the already underperforming Norwegian krone bond market. Amid this turbulence, state-owned Norwegian airport operator Avinor flew in on Wednesday to print a Nkr2bn ($187.8m) dual floating and fixed tranche deal.

The prices of Western Canada Select and West Texas Intermediate dropped below zero during trading on Monday, spelling trouble for issuers in the already underperforming Norwegian krone and Canadian dollar.

Svenska Handelsbanken was the only financial institution to issue senior debt in euros this week. The issuance came at a time Swedish banks have been granted an extension of two years to comply with regulatory targets for MREL debt, which might make a short-term dent in issuance.