Austria

The pace of borrowing has slackened for public sector borrowers as Easter approaches but a few are still out hunting for second quarter funding.

Erste Bank picked banks to arrange its return to the additional tier one (AT1) market on Tuesday, as the Austrian credit looked to capitalise on lower funding costs and renewed appetite for debt from country’s banks.

There were four equity block trades in EMEA on Tuesday evening, the largest of which was a capital increase by Carl Zeiss Meditec, the German medical technology company.

Volksbank Wien could be preparing to launch its first publicly syndicated euro covered bond after Moody’s published a presale report and assigned a top rating to its covered bond programme on Thursday.

Austria’s Hypo Noe and Poland’s PKO Hipoteczny have mandated leads for roadshows that begin in mid-March and which are likely to be followed by deals.

A trio of eurozone government borrowers are rumoured to be mulling deals in the coming weeks, with conditions at the long end in euros looking stronger than earlier in the year.

The vibrant activity in the equity block trade market this week is continuing tonight, with three more selldowns of stock in European companies, including the last sale of stock in Worldpay, the UK payments group, by Advent International and Bain Capital, for about £600m.

Porr, the unrated Austrian construction company, on Monday priced the first European corporate hybrid bond this year at the tight end of guidance.

Guarantor: Republic of Austria

One of the busiest days ever in the public sector dollar market ended with five issuers sitting on deals printed at the top end of their size targets and with pricing tightened from initial thoughts. Another borrower is already out for Thursday business and bankers predict that conditions are so “incredible” that deal flow will stay healthy into next week — no matter what policy statements incoming US president Donald Trump makes at his inauguration on Friday.

A quartet of public sector borrowers are set to cram into the front end of the dollar curve on Wednesday, as bankers outlined a triple whammy of factors driving the squeeze.

Novomatic, the Austria headquartered gambling company, is syndicating a five year revolving credit facility this month as it looks to combine its credit facilities in a single line.