Pre-migration untagged articles

Private placement investors turned to safe havens outside the eurozone this week as turmoil in the European bond markets continued — Asian, Australian, New Zealand, Nordic, US and Canadian issuers were out in force in the MTN market this week.

Dealers of private EMTNS: Non-syndicated deals for less than $250m excluding financial repackaged SPVs, GSE issuers, self-led deals and issues with a term of less than 365 days.

Regulators in the US and Spain this week announced changes to the way loans are to be accounted for on bank balance sheets.

Outstandings in the European commercial paper market declined further this week despite the European Union and International Monetary Fund ‘shock and awe’ bailout package. Macro and market concerns — particularly investors’ reluctance to take exposure to borrowers from out-of-favour eurozone sovereigns like Portugal and Spain at current prices —limited new issues to $50.75bn equivalent by Thursday’s close. This compared with $51.64bn over the same period last week, when sentiment was already poor.

Republic of Finland turned to the private placement market to issue dollars on Friday (May 14), responding to reverse enquiry from a single investor for a $1bn one year MTN.

Generalitat de Catalunya on Wednesday joined utility company Iberdrola in outsourcing its structured note funding to Banesto, becoming the first regional issuer to try the innovative idea.

A promising start to the week in private placements was shattered by BaFin’s move on Tuesday evening to ban uncovered short selling of eurozone sovereign bonds, credit default swaps and the shares of 10 German financial companies. Enquiries dissolved as investors feared that the ban was the result of a much deeper problem yet to be made public.

Dealers of private EMTNs: Non-syndicated deals for less than $250m excluding financial repackaged SPVs, GSE issuers, self-led deals and issues with a term of less than 365 days.

Deutsche Hypothekenbank and UniCredit Bank priced the first sizeable new covered bonds in May this week, but hopes for a wider reopening of the jumbo market were quashed in the wake of a surprise move by the German financial regulator to ban uncovered short-selling of eurozone government bonds and naked CDS on the region’s sovereigns.

Canada Housing Trust (CHT) raised C$5.1bn this week in a deal whose dual tranches met with contrasting outcomes.

A bipartisan initiative to include covered bond legislation in the Senate’s financial regulatory reform bill is underway, according to a letter from Republican congressmen who have been lobbying for the asset class in the House of Representatives.