Santander

Santander effectively opened the Swiss market for senior non-preferred notes on Tuesday. The Spanish bank debut offer attracted Sfr400m ($411.4m) worth of interest –– encouraging for a market looking for future TLAC issuance.

German mining firm K+S issued in the bond market for the second time in the past six weeks on Wednesday, in investment grade style despite its October downgrade into high yield ratings.

Spain’s BBVA priced €500m of additional tier one paper with the lowest coupon of any southern European issuer this week, following its compatriots Banco de Sabadell and Santander in taking advantage of healthy appetite for the product.

JP Morgan and Santander jumped on strong funding conditions in the euro market to add to their stock of bail-inable senior bonds on Thursday, after Royal Bank of Scotland was met with a blowout reception for a Yankee offering.

Spanish banks have taken just over four months to shoot past the supply totals they managed in the whole of last year, after yet another impressive deal was priced this week. With the creation of a new senior asset class potentially just around the corner in Spain, 2017 could turn out to be a bumper year for the nation’s financial institutions.

French building services outsourcer Atalian printed a €625m seven year bond on Wednesday, bringing total high yield issuance for the week to over €2.6bn.

Santander’s Brazilian operations were behind a 14% increase in the group’s attributable profit for the first quarter, with the UK arm also rebounding from a weaker 2016.

Rare covered bond issuers from Portugal and Spain made a surprise return to the market this week after long absences with transactions that, under the circumstances, were very well received.

Rating: A3/A-/A-

Banco Santander Totta did well to raise €1bn of seven year funding on Thursday at a record level through govies, given the damaging ramifications for peripheral Europe that would follow if France’s far left and far right presidential candidates made it through to the second round of voting.

Portugal’s Banco Santander Totta has mandated leads for the first Portuguese covered bond since October 2015.

A glimpse of the future has arrived with the publication of a report modelling the credit risk banks face from drought. The effect on loan portfolios could be severe — and the research illustrates the new kinds of risk management banks will have to do as the world’s climate becomes more volatile.