Sweden

The IPO of Handicare Group, the Swedish maker of stair lifts and mobility products, is multiple times covered at its fixed price of Skr50.

This week's funding scorecard looks at the progress Nordic agencies have made in their funding through the first half of 2017.

Credit Mutuel Arkéa (CM-Arkéa) this week issued the tightest French 10 year covered bond in euros this year with a deal that gave funding that was cheaper than anything it had previously issued.

Three sub-investment grade borrowers printed deals in the high yield corporate bond market on Thursday using different tenors to raise a combined €1.06bn.

Sweden’s Hoist Kredit has said that it is looking to raise new senior debt in euros, at the same time as asking some of its existing senior bondholders to swap their notes for cash.

Strong short end dollar demand led a host of issuers to print tight deals this week, including one debut. Investor appetite is expected to stay strong, but bankers are sceptical that there will be much supply.

Guarantor: Swedish local government members

Kommuninvest kept up this week’s trend for tightly priced short end dollar deals as it achieved its tightest ever spread to swaps on Thursday. Big demand for short dollar paper is creating a “bid-only” market, according to bankers.

Kommuninvest is set to complete a trio of three year dollar benchmarks from SSAs this week, after Nordic Investment Bank comfortably priced in the tenor on Wednesday.

One of the public sector bond market's best known and liked heads of funding has quit the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to join SEB.

Euro corporate bond issuance returned on Friday after a blank day due to Thursday’s European Central Bank meeting. As the ECB’s president, Mario Draghi, said nothing to unsettle markets, US machinery maker John Deere and Italian oil and gas company Eni both priced deals in euros before the weekend, while Sweden's Akelius Property did the same in sterling.

Nordea announced on Wednesday that it was moving its headquarters from Sweden, where it has been since it was formed through a series of mergers in 2000, to Finland, where it will be supervised by the European Central Bank, as part of the ‘Banking Union’ arrangements.