Companies Safer Than Sovereigns as Old Order Ends: Euro Credit

Europe’s sovereign debt crisis has turned the region’s credit markets upside down, with companies now the safest ever relative to governments.

“In the old order, sovereigns were tighter than corporates,” said Greg Venizelos, a credit strategist in London at BNP Paribas SA, the world’s largest bank by assets. “There’s been a repricing and corporates are now better credit quality than sovereigns in the periphery.”