Europe’s corporate bond market could hardly have begun the year with more of a flourish. Following a hesitant finish to 2011, when the eurozone’s woes caused investors to all but retreat from its bond markets, there was a flood of issuance of corporate paper in January. In the euro market, some €20bn of investment grade bonds were printed, while the figure was about £6bn (€7.18bn) for the sterling market.
This was a far quicker start to the year than bankers and analysts had expected – strategists at Société Générale had forecast there would be €95bn of euro deals and £16bn of sterling ones during the whole of 2012.
