RBC Capital Markets

Royal Mail Group priced its debut bond today with a €500m 10 year senior unsecured deal, nine months after its privatisation via IPO.

A tinge of risk-aversion crept into the US corporate bond market on Thursday, as investors digested the US government’s decision to broaden its sanctions on Russia over the situation in Ukraine.

The European Investment Bank, which is over 75% funded for the year, went strategic this week by dipping into South African rand with a curve extending eight year deal. Elsewhere, the International Finance Corporation and KfW picked up funding in Australian and New Zealand dollars.

Royal Mail Group, the UK national postal service that was controversially privatised last year, finished the roadshow on Tuesday this week for its first bond issue.

Dutch insurer NN Group followed up a successful flotation — at $2.1bn, the largest IPO from a European entity this year — with a perpetual subordinated deal on Tuesday. Some bankers away from the deal were critical of it for failing to draw as large an order book as the issuer’s last offering.

Nationwide on Tuesday became the third British financial institution to offer a three year floating rate note (FRN) in covered format this year. Looking to harness the remnants of the momentum it built in the market during its dual tranche euro deal at the end of last month, the building society’s deal was more oversubscribed than the other two similar deals done this year — from Abbey and Lloyds Bank — which were priced in January.

Ferrovial, the Spanish company that calls itself the world’s leading private investor in transport infrastructure, issued a €300m 10 year bond on Tuesday, in a tough market.

Following its successful $2.1bn flotation last week — the biggest European intial public offering this year — NN Group is set to sell a subordinated perpetual non-call 12 year debt that will rank pari passu with the 4.625% €1bn 30 year non-call 10 transaction that the insurance company sold in April.

Using a special purpose vehicle, Dutch port terminals developer Heysta Energy has priced the €350m facility that backs its buyout of HES Beheer.

Dutch insurer NN Group is likely to hit the subordinated debt market later this week with a euro deal, its second of the year, mandating banks on Monday for an investor call. The investor update follows the issuer’s listing on the Amsterdam stock exchange last week.

The State of North-Rhine Westphalia showed that Swiss franc investors still have an appetite for high quality paper when it returned to the market after a three year absence this week. The paper sold well to a clutch of investors on the hunt for high grade paper, despite a punitive spread through mid-swaps.

RBC Capital Markets has hired Andrew Graham and Neil Weatherall as managing directors in sterling rates trading. Graham will be head of sterling rates while Weatherall will be head of sterling inflation trading. Both will report to Alastair Hollingdale, head of European rates.