UniCredit

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.

Austrian property developer CA Immobilien was the only European company to issue a corporate bond on Wednesday, as European bourses rebounded after sell-offs, but the deal gave few clues about the wider market.

Issuance slowed in the sovereign, supranational and agency bond market this week thanks to Chinese New Year and the anticipation of US Federal Reserve chairperson, Janet Yellen's testimony to US Congress.

Additional tier one paper rebounded sharply on Wednesday as fears about the risk of coupon deferral subsided and investors— and Goldman Sachs — decided to test the senior market with a short dated issue.

The recent new issues from Turk Eximbank and Kuveyt Turk are both trading well, leading to hopes that further bonds from the country may follow.

UniCredit released its fourth quarter results on Tuesday, but these did little to reassure stakeholders, who have already seen the bank’s share price fall this year to its lowest level since 2012. However, while the bank as a whole took a hit, its corporate and investment banking division (CIB) grew year on year.

An investor reappraisal of additional tier one paper left the asset class trading at unprecedented lows on Monday, forcing Deutsche Bank to reassure the market of its ability to pay its coupons.

Italian ferry operator Onorato Armatori on Friday sold €300m of secured notes as investors backed its plans for a new financial structure.