Intesa Sanpaolo

Bankers have confirmed that Qatar National Bank has entered the second phase of syndication to refinance an existing €2.25bn facility due for maturity in May 2019.

First it was a pair of car finance issuers. Then came a pair of utilities. And on Tuesday it was a pair of telecoms companies that came to the corporate bond market. But the latest couple really got investors revved up with more than €16.5bn of orders placed.

Russian Copper Co (RCC) has closed a $250m five year credit facility, marking the second refinancing that RCC has secured this year. The tight margin sparked a sliver of optimism in the market.

Equate Group, the Kuwaiti petrochemical producer, has amended and extended its $1.9bn term loan and $1bn revolving credit facility, achieving a reduction in pricing and strong demand from international lenders.

Wells Fargo's head of credit origination for the EMEA region has joined Intesa Sanpaolo’s loan syndicate desk.

The Bank of Italy has said that it is concerned that the introduction of a new minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) could prove troublesome for the business operations of Italian banks, given their limited access to international bond markets.

UniCredit has moved its target date for issuing instruments to meet its total loss absorbing capacity (TLAC) requirement from the end of this year to the end of March next year. Meanwhile, chief executive Jean Pierre Mustier is set to invest in the bank’s equity and additional tier one (AT1) notes.

There is increasing confidence among market participants that the European Central Bank will renew its policy of providing banks with cheap financing, given the arrival of tougher issuance conditions and more stringent liquidity requirements.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) will release results of its 2019 stress test on Friday. Investors will be looking out for the results of NordLB and the Italian banks in particular.

The price of Italian bank shares and bonds rose on Monday morning after local media reported that the government was weighing up extraordinary measures to help the embattled lenders. The next few weeks are crucial for the banks, with the release of stress test results and third quarter earnings.

Italy replaced €3.8bn of a short dated BTP Italia with longer dated conventional BTPs on Thursday, but against a backdrop where its bond yields were once again on an upward trajectory.

Italy will give investors the chance to swap out of its earliest maturing BTP Italia for longer dated nominal bonds on Thursday as it attempts to reduce the size of the €20.5bn issue. The deal comes amid a calmer backdrop for BTP yields than over the last few months — a factor that helped determine the timing of the exchange, said one of the leads.