When the board of Italian utility Enel decided on an €8bn ($11.2bn) rights issue at the beginning of March in order to shore up its balance sheet, equity prices were at a six-year low and market volatility was high. It was also the company’s first equity issue.

Claudio Machetti, executive vice-president for finance at Enel, said: "We were confident that there was enough appetite for new paper after a long time without any deals. However, there was fear about a big pipeline of equity deals waiting when the European equity market started to reopen and we wanted to avoid a rush to market."