UniCredit

The euro market is providing borrowers with superb execution — KfW gathered its largest ever book for a 10 year on Tuesday — but investors are requiring healthy new issue concessions in order to commit.

Italian electricity supplier Enel sold its second green bond on Tuesday, repeating the timing of its first such offering in 2017, which it also sold in the second week of the year. The latest deal was the same size, but priced tighter and won a larger order book, despite printing with a longer maturity.

A $5.5bn senior secured loan to refinance China National Chemical Corp’s (ChemChina) outstanding debt has been launched into general syndication by 16 mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners.

Corporate bond market participants show little sign of caring about the end of European quantitative easing and the danger that presents to their market — which has arguably been the sector most affected by the policy. Nigel Owen reports.

Given the success of the corporate bond market's opening deals of the year, it was perhaps surprising that only one issuer came to market on Thursday, but Daimler achieved similar success to the RCI Banque Wednesday deal that it copied.

2017 saw some serious capital raising by European banks. Four European globally systemic banks, in four monster rights issues, raised more than €30bn — partly to deal with non-performing loans and partly to reclaim their places in global investment banking and capital markets. Even banks that did not turn to the equity markets sought to conserve capital — but is 2018 the year when belts will start to be loosened again? Owen Sanderson reports.

UniCredit has hired a senior Crédit Agricole banker as head of markets sales.

Investment grade corporate bond market players only had to wait one day for the first new deals of 2018. Renault and BMW both brought new paper to market on Wednesday, selling a total of €2.75bn of bonds with little premium.

Italian banks are expected to begin issuing non-preferred senior bonds for the first time, after the country’s parliament approved a package of reforms as part of its latest budget law.

UniCredit was able to sell a new additional tier one (AT1) at close to fair value this week, after updating the market about its progress with its strategic plan at a conference in London.

Rating: Baa1/BBB-/BBB

UniCredit followed up on its capital markets day by announcing the sale of a new additional tier one (AT1) bond on Wednesday.