Norway

SATS, the Norwegian owner and operator of fitness clubs across the Nordic region, has set a price range on its Oslo IPO that values it at over €450m at the top of the range.

The European Systemic Risk Board is concerned that covered bonds could be fuelling financial imbalances — a claim that some analysts find tenuous. They do, however, agree that house prices are overvalued, particularly in some Nordic countries where the ESRB has identified a risk of financial contagion.

Corporate, FIG and SSA issuers placed floating rate notes this week, pegged to Euribor, Sonia and Libor. With so many issuers coming to market, bankers are interested to see which other borrowers 'take advantage of the liquidity'.

Sparebanken Sør Boligkreditt will become the fourth Norwegian bank to issue a green covered bond after mandating leads for a roadshow on Thursday. It follows the first green covered bond by Norway’s SR Boligkreditt and a vanilla deal from Møre Boligkreditt issued this week.

Sparebanken Sør Boligkreditt will become the fourth Norwegian bank to issue a green covered bond and has mandated leads for a roadshow following publication of its green and sustainability framework.

Investor demand for Møre Boligkreditt’s five year covered bond issued on Wednesday was well in excess of the deal size — even though the negative yield of minus 0.269% means they are bound to lose money if they hold it to maturity.

SR Boligkreditt attracted robust demand for its first green covered bond on Tuesday, enabling the bonds to be priced with a minimal concession.

Scatec Solar, a Norwegian solar power generator, raised Nkr1.3bn (€132m) of growth capital in a share sale on Tuesday evening amid rising investor demand for renewable energy assets in Europe.

Sparebank 1 Østlandet priced €500m of debt in senior preferred format at a spread of 67bp over mid-swaps this week — 8bp tighter than the initial price talk. The issuer is not a frequent visitor to the primary market, so it had to pay a higher premium than other borrowers, according to a banker away from the deal.

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

Sparebank 1 priced a seven year senior preferred bond in green format on Wednesday at mid-swaps plus 65bp. The €500m bond attracted demand of €700m but leads were not able to tighten pricing to the full extent of their ambitions.

Raiffeisen Bank International sold a tier two bond this week, tightening pricing by 40bp. The trade was supported by hefty investor demand of €2.7bn, more than six times the deal's €500m size.