Pre-migration untagged articles

Corporate borrowers in the European commercial paper market defied the general market trend and experienced an increase in overall outstanding paper this week, but demand for their paper still exceeded supply.

Swiss cement firm Holcim took Sfr1bn out of the Swiss franc market on Thursday with a 4% December 2013 deal that came at 240bp over mid-swaps, 20bp inside the level at which it was soft-sounded.

Sovereign agency borrowers dominated the vanilla private placement this week though financial institutions also found some demand as investors sought higher yields.

A spate of range accrual notes this week, as well as callable zero coupon deals and some other structures, offered further evidence that investors are again being attracted to structured notes by the chunky yields on offer.

Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital is creating a team concentrating on the equity linked market.

European Central Bank governing council member Ewald Nowotny surprised market participants this week by indicating that only bonds with a maximum maturity of five years will be eligible for the ECB’s Eu60bn covered bond purchase programme.

Three new jumbos hit the covered bond market this week, despite the lack of a firm pipeline at the start of the week and a potential upset from questions over the European Central Bank’s covered bond purchase programme.

The Bank of England’s Asset Purchase Facility bought £130m of commercial paper in the week ending June 25. But the total held by the fund dropped from £2.1bn the previous week to £1.95bn, its lowest since mid-March. This indicates that the paper sold to the facility did not match the rolls of maturing paper. The fund passed the three month mark last month and it dropped the three month maturity requirement in late April to allow purchases of CP with any maturity between one week and three months.

Liam Halligan, chief economist at Prosperity Capital Management, set a frightening tone at the Euromoney global borrowers’ conference this week. "I don’t want the see the UK having a Gilt strike," he said, "but I think anyone who doesn’t think about that is living in cloud cuckoo land."

GE Money Bank France is preparing a roadshow for a new obligations foncières programme backed by French home loans, which will be issued through GE SCF (Société de Crédit Foncier).

Aéroports de Paris issued in the Swiss franc market for the first time since 1999 on Wednesday, selling Sfr250m of six year bonds at 103bp over mid-swaps via Credit Suisse. The bonds tightened to 85bp within one day.

Russian investment bank Troika Dialog closed the book on the R176.6m debut sale of Troika index bonds on Monday. It is the first ever Russian domestic issue of an RTS-index-linked note. The RTS is one of the main Russian stock market benchmarks.