Europe

When market participants were asked at the end of last year to enumerate the main risks investors would face in 2024, the vast majority of those surveyed counted politics and elections amongst the top factors to consider for the unrewarding task of forecasting total returns for major asset classes over the following twelve months.

The European asset-backed securities (ABS) market saw a record issuance last week with €5bn of primary issuance.

The European Central Bank (ECB) will almost certainly start their rates cutting cycle next month. Supportive inflation data and clear guidance from the governing council has driven market implied probabilities of a June cut to almost 100%, with little in the way to derail that.

The first four months of this year have seen €11.6bn in gross Additional Tier 1 (AT1) issuance from European banks, across euros, dollars and sterling markets.

Recently, BBVA announced that it had approached the management of Banco Sabadell, to explore a possible merger between both entities, with BBVA also appointing advisers for this purpose.

Following yesterday’s release of Italian energy company Enel's 2023 annual sustainability report, it was confirmed that they had failed to meet the emissions reduction key performance indicator (KPI) linked to a number of their sustainability linked bonds (SLBs).

The Additional Tier 1's product was first launched in early 2013, so the asset class has mostly seen the period of negative interest rates and challenging operating environment post the Euro zone crisis.

We have had a busy week on the central bank front with the Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell’s semi-annual testimony to congress on Wednesday before Christine Lagarde took centre stage at the European Central Bank press conference yesterday. 

NN Group, the Dutch insurer, has issued its inaugural €750m Restricted Tier 1 (RT1) deal, which came with a 6.375% coupon and BBB-/BBB rating from S&P/Fitch.

Almost a year ago to the day, we were in the midst of banking sector turmoil, which started off with regional banks in the US and spilled over to Europe, eventually culminating in the forced merger between Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse.  

Last year was a volatile year for global markets but also one where economies performed better than expected. If we look at the leveraged loan market, last year was characterised by a surge in so-called amend and extend (A&E).

A few weeks ago, JP Morgan skipped a call on one of its $1,000 par preference shares (“US Prefs”). The perpetual notes had a coupon of 6.75% payable until Jan’24, with a subsequent reset of 3-month SOFR + 404bps. Post the non-call, the coupon changed to 9.35% and will continue to reset every 3 months.