UniCredit

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.

Kepler Cheuvreux has become the go-to option for European banks looking to breathe life into failing their equity capital markets businesses. David Rothnie reports.

KfW returned to the market on Wednesday for its second five year euro benchmark of the year. The €5bn 0% July 2024 note was issued with the lowest yield the German agency has ever paid.

Investors proved their appetite for corporate bonds this week by gobbling €5bn of them on a single day, as Publicis Groupe and BMW issued jumbo deals on a second consecutive day of heavy issuance in Europe.

The State of Schleswig-Holstein returned to the market with a 10 year note on Tuesday. Meanwhile, KfW has announced a new five year euro deal, following on from January’s record KfW book for the maturity.

Volkswagen has rebooted the IPO of Traton, its trucks division, after the deal was delayed in March due to volatility in equity markets caused by the ongoing trade tensions between the US and China.