US primary market issuances stood at $31.6bn last week vs. $18.1bn a week prior. IG issuances stood at $26.3bn led by Florida Power and Light’s $2.5bn three-trancher and Fiserv’s $1.8bn dual-trancher. HY issuances stood at $5.3bn with Citi’s $1.25bn Perp and and Triumph Group’s $1.25bn deals leading the tables. In North America, there were a total of 39 upgrades and 81 downgrades across the three major rating agencies last week. As per Lipper data, US IG bond funds saw outflows of $238mn in the week ended March 1, adding to the $184mn in outflows seen in the week prior. HY bond funds saw $2.31bn of outflows during the week, following the prior week’s $6.1bn in outflows.
LatAm saw no new deals for a third consecutive week. In South America, there were 3 upgrades and 6 downgrades across the major rating agencies. EU Corporate G3 issuance stood at $34bn vs. $26.8bn a week prior. Issuance volumes were led by HSBC’s $7bn three-tranche TLAC deal, followed by Intesa Sanpaolo’s €2.25bn two-tranche green deal. Another prominent deal from the region was HSBC’s $2bn PerpNC5.5 AT1 at a yield of 8%, tightening by a massive 50bp inside initial guidance of 8.5% area. This was its first dollar perp issued since mid-2021. The AT1s have since traded up to 101.07. Across the European region, there were 19 upgrades and 16 downgrades. The GCC dollar primary bond market saw no new deals for a second straight week. Across the Middle East/Africa region, there were 4 upgrades and 1 downgrade across the major rating agencies.
The APAC ex-Japan G3 region saw $4.1bn in issuances vs. $6.7bn in the week before that, led by China Taiping’s $2bn deal and DBS’s $895mn FRN issuance. In the APAC region, there were 8 upgrades and 18 downgrades combined across the three rating agencies last week. In the SGD market, Barclays raised S$400mn via a PerpNC5 AT1 bond (rated Ba2/BBB-) at a yield of 7.3%, offering a juicy yield pick-up of 142bp over BNP Paribas’ SGD PerpNC5.5 AT1s (rated BBB-/BBB) priced a week earlier that were yielding 5.88%.
