Santander

The bookbuild began today for the Spanish government's flotation of 49% of Aena, one of the largest airport operators in the world, in a deal that could top €4bn at the top end of the price range.

Enagás, the Spanish gas grid operator, priced a €600m 10 year bond last Friday. A strong bid for corporate bonds, fuelled by news of the eurozone quantitative easing scheme, helped the issuer to achieve very tight pricing.

Five covered bond borrowers issued benchmark deals in the first half of this week, fearing potential volatility from Thursday's European Central Bank announcement on its sovereign quantitative easing programme.

Richmond Housing Partnership has mandated two banks for a roadshow that could lead to the second debut bond from a UK housing association this year.

Snam, the Italian natural gas transmission company, tapped its April 2023 bond for €250m on Wednesday. The new notes were priced with a very small pick-up, putting some investors off, but the transaction was still more than three times subscribed.

Isolux Corsán, the Spanish energy and construction firm, plans to float on Spain’s main stock markets in a deal that could be worth €600m.

Santander raised €7.5bn of new equity capital last week — an important deal under any circumstances. But most significantly, the deal was done as an accelerated bookbuild or block trade — something that had never been attempted on this scale outside the US. Equity bankers were impressed — and other issuers will be emboldened by Santander’s example.

Telecom Italia, Italy’s largest telecommunications operator, on Monday brought to the high yield market the first €1bn issue of the year, as part of a plan to repay slices of four other bonds.

A week before the European Central Bank is expected to announce a programme of quantitative easing and Greece elects its next president, investors are loading up on senior unsecured paper from top names in FIG, and being paid big new issue premiums. Investors are demanding more in part because of fears of volatility in coming weeks stemming from the ECB and Greece, bankers said.

Santander raised €7.5bn of equity capital in a block trade on Thursday January 8, the biggest ever outside the US, to put its core equity tier one ratio up to 10%. The deal was priced at the low end of the discount range and led to a very steep fall in Santander's share price the day after – yet won some admiration from rival banks.

Banco Santander leapt into an equity market this week that was otherwise empty of deals with a €7.5bn accelerated bookbuild, which bankers expected to be a huge success and an inspiration to other issuers.

Banco Santander leapt into an equity market this week that was otherwise empty of deals with a €7.5bn accelerated bookbuild, which bankers expected to be a huge success and an inspiration to other issuers, writes Olivier Holmey.