It is a measure of the conflicting tensions at play within the debt capital markets that a quarter in which investors largely washed their hands of telecoms issuers also saw a telephone operator launch the world's biggest bond deal yet.
Deutsche Telekom's staggering $14.6bn (󌌿.3bn) offering, launched in the last week of June, is notable not just for its size, but for the way in which the company countered a mounting tide of bearish sentiment.