Pre-migration untagged articles

A R1.5bn ($190m) issue coming to redemption on April 15 from the European Investment Bank was all the market needed to see a fresh wave of bond issuance in South African rand this week. Both KfW and the EIB took advantage of the upcoming outflows to price R500m transactions, of each which will settle on April 15.

Downgrades continue to plague monoline bond insurers this week as Financial Guaranty Insurance Corp (FGIC) and CIFG had their ratings slashed.

FITCH, the rating agency, launched ABCDS Pricing this week, which provides consensus pricing data on over 7,500 asset backed credit default swaps.

Glitnir has added covered bonds to its funding arsenal to help overcome the volatility that has been threatening Icelandic banks in credit markets this year, selling Ikr56bn (Eu474m) in two tranches of a Ikr100bn programme.

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

Despite the considerable problems in financing LBOs and takeovers, Pernod Ricard announced this week that it would buy Vin & Sprit, the Swedish state-owned distiller which has in its stable the vodka brand Absolut, for Eu5.63bn.

Bank CP paper issuers had an easier time than they have become used to this week as some investors started to buy credits they had previously shunned.

Like Woody Allen hungrily eyeing the party in an adjacent train in Stardust Memories, covered bond bankers were left feeling like they’d bought the wrong ticket this week, as the senior unsecured bond market revelled in issuers’ willingness to print deals at levels that tempted investors to throw caution to the wind.

Strong public issuance largely took the zip out of the vanilla private placement market this week, although a string of structured notes, including an inflation linked lower tier two deal sold by RBS, kept the market alive.

UBS decided to pre-empt its first quarter results this week by announcing estimated additional writedowns of $19bn that would cause a net loss of approximately Sfr12bn in the first quarter.

Compagnie de Financement Foncier got the second quarter off to a positive start on Tuesday, executing a $1bn two year Eurobond through Lehman Brothers. Despite being met with a degree of scepticism, the transaction was no April fool.

Citigroup has moved one of its syndicate bankers to the secondary trading side, EuroWeek has found. Jason Mann, who was working on ABS and financial institutions syndicate in London, moved last week.