UniCredit

German chemicals company BASF printed a €300m tap of existing notes on Tuesday, clinching a low single digit concession for the deal.

Trafigura, the commodity trading company, cut the margin of its European loan in its latest refinancing to the lowest level since before the global financial crisis, but also received fewer commitments.

A $400m loan for Turkish industrial holding company Borusan is very near completion. The deal is a rare Turkish corporate syndicated loan but many of the lenders are still domestic banks, according to one banker.

Banco Popolare and Banca Popolare di Milano will merge to form Italy’s third largest bank by assets, having been granted permission by the European Central Bank on Wednesday evening. The deal may trigger further consolidation in Italy, and is could be a crucial step towards the modernisation of the country’s fragmented banking sector.

Covered bond primary activity slowed this week with just two €500m seven year trades emerging from banks in the Netherlands and Italy.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles issued €1.25bn of unsecured bonds on Wednesday, the second crossover deal in the European corporate bond market this week.

Russian mining firm Metalloinvest has closed a $400m pre-export finance facility (PXF), with two banks coordinating. But the bank list and pricing have not been disclosed, leaving uncertainty over the wider lending appetite for the deal and sector.

Akbank signed its $1.2bn-equivalent loan on Friday - one of its two major annual refinancings. But although Turkish banks are paying more for dollar debt at the moment, European banks still like to lend in euros.

Holding Slovenske elektrarne (HSE), the largest power generation firm in Slovenia, has pulled its bond — a sign that European high yield is still cautious, despite increased bond sales in March.

Azerbaijan's Southern Gas Corridor Company printed its $1bn 10 year bond on Thursday 80bp back of the sovereign curve, benefiting from an explicit state guarantee.

Two borrowers from Denmark and Norway launched their first euro denominated covered bonds this week, expanding the number of issuers to a new record.

Sappi Papier, the Austrian-South African paper manufacturer, sold €350m of secured notes at 4% to refinance its 2021 dollar bond, in a European high yield market that has brought forward its post-Easter pipeline of deals.