UniCredit

Investors looking at the multi-billion euro listing of Italian payments company Nexi are largely comfortable with the country’s political environment, focusing more on whether its private equity sellers will seek too high a price.

Rating: Baa3/BBB/BBB

Market participants expect that bank capital valuations will rally much further in 2019, with investors reverting to a hunt for yield amid the prospect of interest rates being lower for longer.

Uralkali, a Russian potash fertiliser producer, has sent out a request for proposals to lenders in a bid to raise $1bn. But bankers say that the Russian market is beset with difficulties that are delaying the few transactions in the pipeline.

Abertis Infraestructuras, the Spanish toll roads group, launched on Monday the four tranche bond issue it had roadshowed for last week, and found Europe’s corporate bond market as avid for paper as it has been for the last couple of weeks. That enabled it to achieve a huge book totalling €14.5bn and at least one negative new issue premium.

Nexi, the Italian payments company, launched its long-awaited flotation on the Italian stock exchange on Monday — and investors are already eager to take a slice of the listing.

Triple B-rated Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) and Andalucia hit screens on Monday, with SSA bankers convinced the deals are indicative of the smaller types of trades expected in the week ahead.

The African Development Bank sold a 10 year benchmark in euros on Thursday that bankers said priced through fair value. Land Schleswig-Holstein was also in the market for the same tenor that extended its curve to 2029.

Commercial banks have been flexing their muscles in the Schuldschein market, with three international deals being marketed without a Landesbank in sight.

UniCredit raised €1bn of additional tier one (AT1) capital on Tuesday without paying a premium to its investors. It had been encouraged to open a new deal after the financial institutions bond market jumped in the run-up to a series of votes on Brexit by the UK parliament.

A Munich-based banker at UniCredit has made an internal move from MTNs to the syndicate desk, covering SSAs and covered bonds.

Telefónica, the Spanish telecoms group with €55bn of debt, came to the euro market on Tuesday to refinance two of its hybrid capital bonds. It launched a tender offer for the pair, which now total €1.3bn, and a hybrid new issue to replace them, tacking on opportunistically a 10 year senior bond issue.