Pre-migration untagged articles

Banco Espiríto Santo priced its first covered bond on Monday at 20bp over mid-swaps. The Eu1.25bn three year mortgage backed deal received orders of almost Eu1.9bn, demonstrating the robust nature of the primary market and enjoying a strong secondary performance.

Despite producing some of the toughest market conditions ever seen by fixed income bankers, 2007 managed to produce an amazing crop of bond deals that will go down in history as some of the best transactions ever done.

The common denominator of the winners of the Deals of the Year, as voted by bankers, in the Sovereign, Supranational and Agency category is extreme rarity.

For these awards, we asked the leading investment banks in the Euromarket to choose the peers they respected — or envied — most during 2007.

JP Morgan’s victory as Most Impressive Bank of the Year as voted by bond market borrowers is not an obvious one. While Morgan is undoubtedly the leader in the dollar market where it dominates Dealogic’s league table as top lead manager of all international bonds, it ranks only seventh in euros and ninth in sterling.

2007 may not be remembered as a vintage year for the corporate bond market in Europe, yet the market did not suffer any fundamental problems. Spreads widened in the second half of the year as the multi-year credit bull run ended; yet investors had long complained that spreads were too tight.

You could be forgiven for thinking that 2007 had failed to produce great transactions for financial institutions. But in fact last year had more than its fair share of stunning deals.

Royal bank of canada’s return to the Australian dollar market in March scooped the prize for Best Australian/New Zealand Dollar Deal as issuers and lead managers were impressed by its size and competitiveness.