UniCredit

Loan bankers expect more activity from Russian borrowers in the final months of the year, as Norilsk Nickel prepares to come to the market and rumours circulate of a large M&A financing.

The State of North Rhine-Westphalia sold on Thursday the longest dated benchmark ever from a German state, in a move which may encourage other Laender to follow suit.

Nederlandse Waterschapsebank has pushed the funding boat out in euros, by selling a rare 50 year MTN.

Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten has tapped a June 2024 line, managing to print €400m despite offering a negative yield. Land NRW will sidestep the negative yield problem on Thursday by moving out the curve.

UniCredit Italy took advantage of constructive conditions and scarce Italian covered bond supply to launch a 10 year and got a well oversubscribed order book, paying little new issue premium on Wednesday

Sparebank 1 Boligkreditt on Tuesday followed Commerzbank into the covered bond market. By coming 20bp back of Commerz, the Norwegian sale was much smoother.

Oberbank, the Austrian regional lender, is considering a €100m rights issue in the fourth quarter to strengthen its balance sheet and finance its plans for expansion and earnings growth, the company said this week.

General syndication for a $12.7bn loan to back China National Chemical Corp’s acquisition of Swiss biotech firm Syngenta is set to wrap up.

Russian metals producer Norilsk Nickel is gearing up to launch a loan with international banks, having already secured a large unsecured facility from Chinese banks this year.

Appetite for the longer-dated tranche in Akbank’s refinancing was so low that the deal shrunk by more than two thirds and only received commitments in euros. The one year piece was about the same size, however.

The euro market is braced for a difficult close to the year. Given the turbulent conditions expected, green bonds may come into their own.

Russian steelmaker Evraz has amended its loan agreements to prevent it from breaching covenants as volatile commodity prices hit earnings.