Portugal

Italy and Portugal showed this week that any concerns about the pace of eurozone quantitative easing halving to €30bn from January were overdone as they each built their largest ever benchmark books. Italy’s trade was particularly notable, as it was the last syndication by its retiring head of funding — and market stalwart — Maria Cannata.

French toll road operator Autoroutes du Sud de la France on Wednesday followed the path its compatriot Orange had taken on Tuesday by issuing a €1bn 12 year bond, while Deutsche Bahn and Ren Finance on Thursday opted for the 10 year area of the curve. Investors appear keen to put their money to work at the longer end of the corporate bond curve.

State owned German rail operator Deutsche Bahn steamed back into the investment grade corporate bond market on Thursday, choosing an unusual maturity that was still well received by investors. The same applied to Ren Finance, which brought a sub-benchmark 10 year deal following a roadshow earlier in the week.

A combined €48bn of cash swelled the orderbooks for Italy and Portugal’s deals on Wednesday, dispelling any fears that the reduction of the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing programme would hamper demand.

January’s impressive pipeline of sovereign issuance is starting to unload, as Italy and Portugal hit screens on Tuesday for their first syndications of the year.

Investment grade corporate bond market players only had to wait one day for the first new deals of 2018. Renault and BMW both brought new paper to market on Wednesday, selling a total of €2.75bn of bonds with little premium.

A long-standing dispute about how the Bank of Portugal handled the senior bonds of Novo Banco in 2015 reared its head again this week, as a group of influential asset managers refused to take part in a subordinated bond issue from Banco Comercial Português (BCP). But the boycott is yet to damage Portuguese financial institutions, with banks gradually restoring their access to the capital markets, writes Tyler Davies.

Banco Comercial Português (BCP) found plenty of demand for its first ever tier two deal on Wednesday, even though a number of investment funds made it clear that they would not invest in Portuguese debt until the Bank of Portugal addressed the way it handled Novo Banco in 2015.

Italian corporate issuers have dominated bond issuance in recent weeks but Wednesday brought a pair from Iberia, as two energy suppliers took advantage of the market's hot conditions.

Caixa Económica Montepio Geral this week attracted strong demand for its first covered bond since 2009 and the first ever Portuguese deal with a conditional pass through (CPT) maturity.

Caixa Económica Montepio Geral has mandated lead managers to market the first publicly syndicated Portuguese conditional pass through (CPT) covered bond using a structure that is somewhat different to Dutch CPTs.

Investors piled into a Unione di Banche Italiane (UBI) €1.25bn 10 year Obbligazioni Bancarie Garantite on Monday, despite it offering no new issue premium and being the issuer’s largest and longest transaction in at least six years