Pre-migration untagged articles

Eastern European sovereign borrowers have been looking to take advantage of the market’s collective sigh of relief after Greece’s successful bond sale. Slovenia didn’t waste a moment with a Eu1bn issue on Monday, while Romania is meeting investors in preparation for its own. Turn to EuroWeek on Friday to see how the market feels about eastern European sovereign credit this week.

What a difference a week makes. Just days after the European government bond market passed arguably its toughest test yet, with the sale of Greece’s Eu5bn10 year bond, Agence France Trésor is in the market with a 50 year deal to be priced at 2bp-4bp over the 2055 OAT. Elsewhere the euro floodgates are wide open for public sector issuers keen to get into the market before the EU’s March 16 judgement on Greece's deficit reduction. Neither Belgium nor Finland’s deals were priced at the tight end of guidance, or reached their expected Eu5bn, but the EIB did achieve Eu5bn on its first EARN of the year.

Spanish utility Gas Natural is looking to refinance part of its Eu19bn acquisition facility with a jumbo, dual tranche Eu4bn loan. The self-arranged loan comprises a Eu1bn three year piece with a margin of 95bp and a Eu3bn five year tranche paying 120bp, and will repay part of the loan used for the takeover of Unión Fenosa in 2008. For more on this deal and what else is in the market, read EuroWeek this Friday.

A Eu600m 2-1/2 year issue for Norway’s Terra Boligkreditt kick-started covered bond issuance this week, with Lloyds TSB and SpareBank 1 Boligkreditt following with deals. The pricing of Lloyds’s inaugural Regulated Covered Bond left some market participants disappointed by the level, although not all for the same reason.

NIBC Bank is hitting the market with its first public RMBS since the credit crisis, Dutch MBS XV, shortly after the successful placement of Alliance & Leicester’s traditional UK RMBS. EuroWeek on Friday asks if normality is returning to Europe’s securitisation markets.

Investors rushed to invest in Westpac Securities New Zealand and Goldman Sachs’ seven year bonds, which were priced on Wednesday. The order books for the deals, which were for Eu750m and Eu1.25bn respectively, reached over Eu4bn. Meanwhile, France BPCE has surprised the market with an old-school hybrid tier one deal and Rabobank has emerged with its own take on contingent capital.

The Bank of England's $2bn three year issue confirmed that investors still consider UK plc a worthwhile investment. It attracted over $3bn of interest and was priced at mid-swaps flat. The response to Network Rail's $1bn three year was more muted — the book was just shy of subscription — but at mid-swaps plus 12bp, central banks were interested and took 86% of the paper.

Benchmarks for Austrian, Dutch and Finnish issuers this week contributed to a geographical diversifying of covered bond supply that was set in motion last week when the first deal outside France and Germany in nearly a month was launched.

Ultra-rare sovereign names commanded tight spreads in Swiss francs this week as the Kingdom of Belgium’s first bond in the currency for nearly two decades led a flurry of top-rated SSA and covered bond issues. Very long and less common maturities also helped overcome investor concerns over the low yield environment.

The list of new sovereign, supranational and agency names heading into the private placement market grew longer this week as Scandinavian states and cities and a Belgian region also looked to tap the market.

The Canadian government is planning to introduce covered bond legislation, it said in Thursday’s 2010 budget.

Inflation linked demand was high in the MTN market this week as some investors sought protection for their bond portfolios while others simply welcomed the chance to bet on inflation rocketing in eurozone countries in the near future.