Bank of America

Korea Development Bank (KDB) snagged tight pricing for its $1.5bn dual-tranche bond, completing one of the first deals of the year in Asia. Some accounts stayed away citing expensive pricing and geopolitical concerns, but investors still thronged to the credit, viewing it as a defensive play amid high volatility.

Wednesday brought red back to equity traders' screens after a buoyant Tuesday, but trading action confirmed the satisfactory execution of this year’s first two substantial equity capital markets deals in Europe: the €1.03bn block trade in NN Group, the Dutch insurer, and French aerospace firm Safran’s €650m convertible.

The Inter-American Development Bank is the latest issuer to enter a red hot dollar market, after KommuneKredit and the Asian Development Bank raised money on Wednesday.

The European Stability Mechanism is seeking ideas for a bond issue next week, as the euro market burst back into life following a holiday across much of Europe on Wednesday.

Barclays has printed one of the largest dollar senior trades from a European bank in recent memory, as it and Santander UK took home $5bn of holding company debt between them on Tuesday.

Europe's equity capital market lost no time in hitting back after the scary start of Monday, when world markets tumbled after China's stockmarket went into freefall and Saudi Arabia and Iran's war of words became more rancorous.

Hong Kong real estate giant Swire Properties and the Korea Development Bank have launched the first investment grade bonds from Asia for 2016, opening books for dollar-denominated transactions on January 6.

Just as European equity capital sales made a prompt start to the year today with the €1bn NN Group block trade, the equity-linked market has also wasted no time. Safran, the French aerospace and defence company, issued a €650m convertible at what a banker claimed was a record low yield.

If Monday was an ugly beginning to 2016 in the equity capital market, with a 7% fall in Chinese stocks dragging world indices down, Tuesday has been much cheerier, even bringing deals in Europe.

Last year’s difficult dollar conditions looked firmly in the past on Tuesday as a pair of issuers tapped different parts of the curve for big deals — and other issuers readied themselves for trades.

European high yield specialists hope the continent's market can repeat in 2016 its sharp outperformance compared with the US market last year — but history suggests that the two markets tend not to diverge for long.

Acadia Healthcare, the US psychiatric and behavioural health care provider, has agreed to buy UK peer the Priory Group from Advent International for around £1.5bn.