Austria

Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberösterreich has mandated joint leads for its first benchmark euro covered bond and the Bank of Queensland has hired leads to explore options for a potential structure.

Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberosterreich has mandated joint leads for its first benchmark euro covered bond.

América Móvil, the Mexican telecoms group controlled by Carlos Slim, has reduced its stake in Austrian communications provider Telekom Austria by 0.89%, in a trade that fulfils a promise made to the Austrian government two years ago to reduce its stake in the company to no more than 51%.

Oberbank, the Austrian regional lender, is considering a €100m rights issue in the fourth quarter to strengthen its balance sheet and finance its plans for expansion and earnings growth, the company said this week.

Austrian construction firm Porr has completed an amended and extended €65m of Schuldscheine signed last year, securing tighter margins and longer tenors.

Erste Bank announced the redemption of three legacy tier ones this week, with the Austrian lender possibly set to leap into the additional tier one (AT1) market this summer.

Citigroup has issued on Thursday an unusual €374m bond, exchangeable into shares of Telekom Austria, as part of a deal that enabled América Móvil to reduce its stake in the company, fulfilling an earlier promise, without suffering a big fall in the share price.

Sapinda has sold its 18.6% stake in Austrian-German home builder and asset manager Buwog, via an accelerated bookbuild on Tuesday evening.

The number of active covered bond borrowers looks set to hit a new record after Moody’s assigned its top rating to the hard bullet mortgage covered bond programme of Austria’s Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberoesterreich (RFLBOB).

CA Immobilien Anlagen, the Austrian real estate business, was able to increase the size of a new issue to €140m on Tuesday, with strong support from domestic investors.

Shares in Erste Bank and Euskaltel closed nearly 4% lower on Wednesday after two block trades were executed in their shares on Tuesday evening.

Citigroup has hired an equity capital markets banker from Deutsche Bank to help its business in the German-speaking region.