UniCredit

VIENNA PRIVATE DEBT ROUNDTABLE The Schuldschein market is widening its circle of issuers and investors. It is now a natural choice for Austrian companies wanting to complement bank funding, but not necessarily big enough to issue public bonds.

The Schuldschein market has become a hotbed of technological innovation over the past 12 months, with as many as 11 digital platforms cropping up, claiming to have solutions to the instrument’s age-old, if slightly charming, inefficiencies. Silas Brown looks into the secrets to a digital platform’s success.

The Euro private placement as an organised, visible, investment grade-like market has disappointed its founders. But despite unfavourable monetary policy, institutional corporate lending has taken hold. As Jon Hay discovers, the deals are there — but well camouflaged.

LONDON PRIVATE DEBT ROUNDTABLE The UK’s private debt market is one of the most vibrant in Europe. London is the most active centre in Europe for US private placement investing, and UK borrowers have longstanding links with that market.

The US private placement market has carved itself quite a following among borrowers in the UK and Europe, with its enticing offer of long dated debt at tight margins. But since Britain voted to leave the European Union, agents are playing on another of the market’s strengths — its resilience to external shocks. Silas Brown investigates.

The City of London Corporation, via its endowment fund the City’s Cash, is set to enter the US private placement market for the first time. While UK councils are still a rare sight in the US PP market, agents believe they may be a fruitful asset class for the future. Silas Brown reports.

PARIS PRIVATE DEBT ROUNDTABLE European private debt markets are developing fast and diversifying — although many market participants would rather they became standardised. The Euro Private Placement market, founded in France, has not blossomed into a rival to the US PP. Many French issuers now travel to Germany’s larger Schuldschein market.

German agriculture, energy, logistics and services group BayWa printed a €500m five year green bond on Monday, building a strong €750m book — despite some ambiguity about how to treat the unrated corporate.

Volkswagen surprised the equity capital markets on Friday by setting a range on the IPO of its trucks division, Traton, a few days earlier than most in the market had expected. But the deal has already gained strong investor interest.

It's not often a €1.75bn deal from Volkswagen Leasing is overshadowed in the corporate bond market, though that was the case on Wednesday with Berkshire Hathaway's £1.75bn 20 and 40 year stormer. But Berkshire left euros clear for Volkswagen - it only had Bright Food of China to compete with.

Germany’s Deufol has signed a new five year syndicated facility, with the packaging company managing to cut the margin on its bank debt by around 25bp.

This week is set to be busy in Europe's investment grade corporate bond market, despite yet another dead day on Monday because of public holidays. Equities rose on Monday and sentiment is good; market participants have decided they are comfortable with what they got from the European Central Bank on Thursday.