Irish Capital Market Deals Top €100 billion

Capital market deals by Irish-based issuers exceeded €100 billion in 2003. A wide variety of funding vehicles were used by both corporate and bank issuers, according to Dublin-based Finance magazine. Corporate bonds came back into favour in 2003, with six issues totaling approximately €2.8 billion from a number of the country’s largest companies, said the report. On the banking side, Finance noted that two new markets had emerged – the Irish covered bond, which saw issuance top €10 billion during last year – and certificates of deposit, which for the first time Irish banks were able to issue to Irish investors. The largest corporate financing transaction in Ireland in 2003 was Eircom’s €2.4 billion refinancing, ‘Project Senaca’, which also involved the largest euro denominated high yield bond issuance in the European markets last year, at approximately €1.1 billion, according to Finance.

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