Deutsche Bank AG and Rabobank Nederland led European lenders selling U.S. bonds.

Germany’s biggest bank issued $1 billion of five-year notes in its first dollar-denominated sale since March, while Rabobank sold $2.75 billion of securities, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. European lenders offered $7.25 billion of bonds yesterday, driving corporate sales to $21.2 billion, the most since September 2009, while today saw the year’s first senior bank bonds in euros. European banks are competing for investors after the region’s crisis drove borrowing costs for its most indebted governments to the highest on record. For financial companies, relative yields on dollar-denominated debt are at the tightest since May, while spreads on bonds in euros are about the widest since July, Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data show.

“It will be a challenge to raise funds at least in the early part of this year,” said John Stopford, who helps oversee about $65 billion as head of fixed-income at Investec Asset Management Ltd. in London. As redemptions come due in the first half of the year for Portugal and Spain, “more clarification on how and in what form support might be necessary would be a constructive thing,” he said. The banks are taking advantage of investor demand for higher-rated financial debt, said Michael Gower, the head of long-term funding at Rabobank. The Utrecht, Netherlands-based company, which has top credit ratings from Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s, split its sale yesterday between $1.5 billion of 4.5 percent, 10-year bonds and $1.25 billion of 1.85 percent, three-year notes, Bloomberg data show.AgerpresM,ediafax, Romanian Vancouver SunG,lobal News,
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