UniCredit

The Middle East has provided the only source of CEEMEA supply so far this week. Bahrain bounced back to hog the spotlight, returning to tap $600m of bonds less than a week after an unexpected Standard & Poor’s downgrade led the issuer to cancel a previous $750m attempt. Meanwhile, yet another Latin America sovereign came to the euro market.

Yet another German car maker has completed a lap of the private debt market. Porsche AG closed order books for its €200m Schuldschein this week.

This week will see the Schuldschein market host its first two green deals, a new direction for the centuries-old private debt market.

The Russian loan market has brought its first dollar deal of the year with Siberian Coal Energy Company (SUEK) signing a long-awaited $1bn pre-export finance facility. The deal is its first syndicated loan since January 2014 and exceeds the size of any Russian loan of 2015.

With the year not two months old, seven leading equity capital markets banks have got saddled with what is understood to be at least €50m each of Saipem shares, after the rump of its rights issue failed to sell.

Banca Popolare di Vicenza came a step closer to launching its listing and capital increase this week, as it announced the date of a shareholder meeting to approve the deal.

Helaba brought the biggest Pfandbrief since 2011 on Tuesday, pulling in €1.25bn with a long four year deal. It was the first ever euro benchmark covered bond issued with a zero percent coupon, but given the persistent low interest rate environment it is unlikely to be the last, with some bankers alarmed at the prospect of negative yielding covered bonds.

Hoffmann La-Roche returned to the European corporate bond market exactly a year after its last offering in euros and as it did then, achieved aggressive pricing for a €650m bond.

Romania is offering a 20bp new issue premium on taps of its euro-denominated 2025 and 2035 bonds, according to a lead manager on the trade.

By the second day of Saipem’s auction of its unsold rights, all of them had been sold to investors — but with the share price still 3.3% below the subscription price at Thursday's close, the underwriters may yet have to buy up to €427m of stock.

Supranational and agency borrowers showed their steel once again this week, printing a series of euro deals in the face of strong volatility.

European credit and equity markets suffered a sustained battering this week with financial borrowers facing ever greater scrutiny in the wake of poor results and concerns about their ability to meet coupon payments.