"The pace of government-guaranteed paper has slowed in the past few weeks. The guaranteed sector is not designed to exist much beyond this year, by definition, and as we get closer to that deadline we should see it pick up. All banks cannot wait until September or October," says Spencer Lake, global head of debt capital markets at HSBC.
The common feature of the issuing banks is that they are double-A rated – extremely well capitalized and extremely important to their domestic economies.
"At present this market is best suited for national champions and or best-in-class banks," Lake says.
The names of those that have conducted the biggest deals are highly recognizable and systemically important: UniCredit, Intesa, Rabobank, Credit Suisse, HSBC, Barclays, NRW, BNP Paribas, Commerzbank, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.
| "You’re starting to see Spencer Lake, HSBC |
The non-guaranteed market is no longer the preserve of fixed-rate and longer-dated maturities. The 18-month floating-rate note has returned – albeit at spreads substantially wider than those paid before the crunch.