Sweden

Nordic companies are showing a strong willingness to adopt the renminbi for payments which is a creating an opportunity for Sweden’s SEB Paula da Silva, head of transaction services at SEB, told GlobalRMB at the recent Sibos conference held in Singapore.

Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) issued a €1bn seven year Swedish covered bond on Monday and attracted enough interest to tighten pricing, something that few issuers were able to do recently. However, even with double the concession DNB paid, the Swedish borrower attracted much less demand than the Norwegian one. SEB’s curve has been marked 2-3bp wider following the deal.

Covered bonds worth almost €7bn were issued this week but, by virtue of its size, oversubscription ratio and breadth of demand, Nationwide Building Society’s €1bn deal stood out.

Swedbank returned to the sterling covered bond market to issue its second sterling deal this year. Though the issuer paid a minimal concession, the spread was almost double what it paid in August and the order book almost half.

A European agency is set to bring a green bond on Tuesday as optimism grows that SRI volumes could pick up even more over the next two months.

Garfunkelux, the German debt collection company, on Thursday issued £795m of notes in the first sizeable European high yield issue for three weeks. Market participants are now eager to see if other issuers finally follow in its steps.

Bravida, the Swedish electrical, heating, plumbing and ventilation systems installer, closed the institutional book for its IPO at noon on Thursday, and was doing allocations on Thursday afternoon. Pricing is expected to come on Friday morning.

Bravida, the Swedish electrical, heating, plumbing and ventilation systems installer, narrowed the price range of its IPO on Tuesday morning, inside the top half of the original range, meaning the deal is likely to raise at least Skr2.8bn (€305m).

Bravida, the Swedish plumbing, heating and electricals group, this week launched the bookbuilding phase of its initial public offering in Stockholm.

Hellman & Friedman is acquiring a majority stake in the Swedish company Securitas Direct with a €2.7bn financing package involving bonds and loans — but market sentiment remains downhearted.

Markets have stabilised after the recent turmoil, but a lack of issuance across corporate bonds and loans this week illustrates how nervous borrowers are that further upheaval could be on its way.

Hellman & Friedman is acquiring a majority stake in the Swedish company Securitas Direct with a €2.7bn financing package involving bonds and loans.