German Sovereign

The German State of North Rhine-Westphalia came to market on Monday for its final benchmark bond issue of 2020 — a €2.4bn sustainability bond. Although NRW is winding up this year's funding, there are still plenty of deals in the pipeline from its fellow Laender.

Green, social and sustainable issuance has dominated the supranational and agency bond market for a whole month, consistently outpacing conventional supply. That trend looks set to continue with three SRI deals already on screens.

This week's funding scorecard looks at the progress of Europe's supranationals and agencies at the start of the fourth quarter.

Bank Nederlandse Gementeen kicked off a busy week for socially responsible bond issuance by public sector borrowers with a well-received 12 year sustainable bond, its longest ever deal in that format.

The City of Bremen was heavily undersubscribed as it came to the market with an eight year bond on Thursday, in what is the region’s second consecutive public deal that has failed to reach full subscription.

Trading levels given are bid-side spreads versus mid-swaps and/or an underlying benchmark and bid-yields from the close of business on Monday, September 28. The source for secondary trading levels is ICE Data Services

Germany’s national debt management agency, the Finanzgentur, has outlined its issuance plans for the fourth quarter, which includes the details of the sovereign’s second ever green bond following its debut deal in the format earlier this year.

After a week without deals, the primary euro public sector bond market will see a return of activity next week with Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten and the State of North Rhine-Westphalia preparing to bring sustainable deals in the currency.

A number of syndicated deals from German regions have failed to reach full subscription over the last few weeks. It is not clear whether they will respond by offering greater new issue premiums.

Guarantor: Federal Republic of Germany

Caisse d’Amortissement de la Dette Sociale (Cades) and the International Development Association set new size records this week, with the former bringing the biggest ever social bond in dollars and the latter issuing its biggest ever bond since entering the capital markets in 2018.

Rentenbank made an impressive entry to the green benchmark bond market this week with its biggest ever order book in euros by overall size and number of accounts. Head of funding Leopold Olma, who has spent 20 years with the German development agency’s funding team, called it the “ultimate transaction”.