UniCredit

Russian nickel and palladium producer Norilsk Nickel has refinanced an existing facility and in the process has increased the size of the deal and shaved the margins. According to bank lenders, the deal is one of many expected to enter the market by Russian borrowers seeking to obtain more attractive terms amid a drought in activity.

ING was praised for pricing a coupon of 4.875% in what was the only financial institution trade of the week in the euro market. The lender had to brave much tougher market conditions in its second attempt at this bond issue, having pulled its first attempt amid news of its chief executive jumping ship.

Credit spreads lurched wider at the beginning of the week, with investors reacting to reports of further cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus outside of China. The reaction fell short of panic, but bankers said that some issuers were moving to delay their plans for bond deals.

ING left its investors bemused on Wednesday, when it decided to pull the additional tier one (AT1) bond it was marketing on the basis of undisclosed information it had received. After the news of its chief executive’s move to UBS quickly became public, the door was left open for the bank to complete the trade.

BNP Paribas this week set a new record low for an additional tier one (AT1) coupon issued from a European bank in the dollar market, raising $1.75bn amid heady demand for the product. Iceland’s Arion Bank was also in the market, chipping in with a $100m deal ahead of beneficial domestic tax changes.

US bond market tourists poured into high grade euros this week, where tiny concessions and a cheap overall cost of funding saw a string of successful trades.

Teréga, the French gas transport utility, enjoyed chunky demand for a €400m bond issue on Thursday, despite its sub-benchmark size.

UniCredit is making Algis Pabarcius its UK country head, replacing Christian Steffens, who is moving to head up corporate and investment banking for the Americas region.

Intesa Sanpaolo chose to split an additional tier one (AT1) deal into two tranches on Thursday, with one eye on the secondary performance of the bonds and the other on the maturity profile of its debt capital stock.

US tourists are flocking to Europe's high grade corporate bond market this week with Reverse Yankee deals. General Motors Financial was the latest with a six year trade on Wednesday.

ING Groep postponed the sale of an additional tier one after clocking up $11bn of demand in the dollar market on Wednesday. At the same time, Arion Bank was looking to launch a $100m deal in the same format — the lowest volume on record in dollars.

Gazprom returned to the Eurobond market for the first time in a year on Tuesday, pulling in $4bn of orders at one stage in the pricing process, despite the US sanctioning a Rosneft subsidiary.