It took a few days, but the first 2025 debt issue from a Spanish company has already arrived. In this case in duplicate. BBVA and Banco Santander have reopened the market this Tuesdaythe day in which the Public Treasury also faced its first auction of the year, in which it placed new 6 and 12 month bills at somewhat higher rates than in December.
One of the strong seasons for debt placements is coming. Companies take advantage of the beginning of the year to seek financing and the first weeks of January usually register a lot of activity in issues after the Christmas break, with banking being one of the classic protagonists.
BBVA has returned from vacation with an issue of contingent convertible bonds (known as CoCos or AT1) in dollars. The operation, which is being placed by BBVA itself, Barclays, BofA, Citi, HSBC and JP Morgan, will have a 7-year window although it is perpetual debt and, at the moment, the coupon is 8.5%.
Gone is the Credit Suisse crisis that caused great distrust among investors for Cocos, given the drastic solution of valuing these instruments of the Swiss bank at zero. In fact, it was BBVA that dared to broadcast the first AT1 in Europe months after the scandal. This would be BBVA’s fourth Cocos placement since then, two of them in euros and the other two in dollars.
For its part, Banco Santander repeats as one of the largest Spanish issuers early risers of the year. After starting 2024 with several preferred senior debt placements, This 2025 has opted for non-preferred bonds (the securities that banks can issue since 2017 and that count as capital under the TLAC/MREL regulations).
The bank chaired by Ana BotÃn has chosen various sections: 5 and 10 years. There are still no coupons and, for the moment, investors are demanding 135 basis points above the reference rate (midswap) in the first case, and 160 basis points in the second. The underwriters are Santander itself, BofA, Citi, CA-CIB, GS, MS, RBCCM and WFS, according to data from Bloomberg.
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