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As Western societies begin to contemplate life returning to some semblance of normality, the financial industry is working out how best to balance the understandable desire to get back to how things were before the crisis with the very real threat of a new and more deadly wave of coronavirus brought on by a mass-return to offices. GlobalCapital’s Silas Brown spoke with Peter Openshaw, a specialist in immunology and virology and professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College, about the transmission of Covid-19 and how banks, investors and companies can reduce the risk of infection.

US and European airlines and aircraft makers have had contrasting experiences in the capital markets during the Covid-19 pandemic, highlighting the two continents’ different corporate finance cultures, as well as the way central bank support is being received in the market, writes Mike Turner.

Issuers are starting to feel more comfortable with the new normal of wider spreads as a flurry of deals dusted the Swiss franc market, including a rare operating-company level visit from UBS.

New issue premiums evaporated in the high grade corporate bond market this week, with multiple issuers printing well through their curve as the world begins to emerge from pandemic lockdown.

Issuance in the financial institutions bond market had a preferred senior flavour this week, with issuers finding this the most cost-effective funding compared with other asset classes. In addition, some of them can use it to fulfil regulatory requirements.

Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA

Volkswagen Financial Services has said it will inject cash into its ABS transactions where borrowers have been granted payment holidays, aiming to top up the deals to protect investors from the decline in likely residual values.

Hertz, Avis and Europcar are all facing the same problem. Nobody is travelling, and so nobody is renting cars. Vast airport car parks full of ready-to-go rental cars stand idle, and cash flows at all three companies have stopped almost dead. But they have fared very differently — from near-bankruptcy to leaning hard on government.

Estonia’s LHV Pank is set to become the second bank in the country to take advantage of the country’s covered bond law and, having set up a programme and gained central bank authority to issue, Moody’s this week assigned a rating to its programme.

Instituto de Crédito Oficial (Ico) was almost seven times covered for its four year Covid-19 social bond on Wednesday, as investors continue to support deals to tackle the pandemic. The European Stability Mechanism could follow with a similar maturity next week, after it sent banks a request for proposals (RFP).

World Bank has picked banks for a 10 year dollar benchmark — the first in the SSA market since October 2019. The bond is a sustainable development bond, focusing on the health and well-being UN Sustainable Development Goal.

Rating: Aa3/A/AA-