AstraZeneca, Shell plotting debt sales ahead of ECB corporate QE-programme

AstraZeneca was marketing €2.2bn of debt in a three-part of deal, according to people familiar with the deal cited by Bloomberg.

Airbus Group and Royal Dutch Shell were also marketing their own bonds, the same people said, with US outfit Bunge and Spanish insurer Mapfre having also hired banks for possible sales, other people told the newswire.

Firms were keen to take advantage of the European Central Bank’s decision to start purchasing corporate debt in May, with highly-rated outfits having issued approximately €65bn of securities since the ECB outlined its intentions on 10 March.

Shell was reportedly intending to sell €1.75bn-worth of bonds maturing in eight and 12 years.

For its part, aerospace giant Airbus was said to be looking for buyers for €900m on 15-year bonds at a yield of about 60 basis points above benchmark rates, less than had been initially discussed. A ten-year bond sale was also in the works.

Data released on 6 May by EPFR Global showed that in the latest week credit funds had recorded their biggest inflow in seven weeks, with the ECB’s programme of corporate-quantitative easing seen as the main driver by Bank of America-Merrill Lynch’s Ioannis Angelakis.