UniCredit

UniCredit AG issued its first dollar Pfandbrief on Tuesday, shortly after DekaBank had quickly wrapped up a sub-benchmark eight year. The two deals followed an inaugural sub-benchmark seven year from Slovakia’s Tatra banka that was priced on Monday.

UniCredit’s German subsidiary, HVB, has mandated leads for the first dollar covered bond in its 150 year history reflecting a preference to avoid issuing a negative yielding euro benchmark.

Switzerland’s Ameropa has signed a $600m revolving credit facility, with the privately owned agricultural business bumping up the size of its syndicated bank line and bank group.

CTP, a commercial real estate developer based in Czech Republic, has signed a €1.9bn loan in one of the largest real estate packages to enter the syndicated loans market in central and eastern Europe ever.

DCM bankers say that market conditions are just right for some of Europe’s smaller and more marginalised financial institutions to bring new bond deals ahead of the summer.

An innovative senior bond sold by UniCredit this week showed how blurred the lines have become between what is up for grabs in a resolution and what is not.

Agrana, a food producer headquartered in Vienna, is marketing a Schuldschein where its floating notes are some 20bp inside the fixed note offering. Two market participants said they had never seen this before.

Just two months after a dovish US Federal Reserve lured América Móvil to the dollar bond market for the first time in eight years, the Mexican telecoms giant was again able to make the most of benevolent central bank talk on Wednesday as it jumped on a rates rally in Europe for its first euro trade since 2016.

The rally set off European Central Bank president Mario Draghi's assertion on Tuesday that further quantitative easing was possible, if not probable, had reached a level by Wednesday that astonished bankers. Three investment grade companies took advantage that day with benchmark bond issues, while one brought a tap.

UniCredit made the unusual decision of adding a one year call option to a preferred senior bond on Tuesday, nodding towards the bond’s potential value as total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC). The Italian bank won strong support on a day when dovish central bank comments were fuelling a big rally in the value of risk assets.

FRANKFURT PRIVATE DEBT ROUNDTABLE The Schuldschein market has kept up its momentum across Europe and elsewhere, but two regions have been curiously quiet. Iberia and Italy have implied investment grade borrowers well suited to the market, yet only a few have been tempted to use it. Are there barriers to entry and how can they be overcome?

Europe’s private debt markets are progressing admirably. More and more companies are issuing, or at least aware of the possibility — and they have a varied choice of markets. Players in the Schuldschein and US PP markets are confident and looking ahead to new opportunities, as the products grow in geographical reach, asset class and technique. As Jon Hay reports, there’s just one snag — the credit cycle is nearing its end.