Banks

The State of North Rhine Westphalia mandated banks on Monday for a 30 year euro benchmark, ahead of a highly anticipated European Central Bank meeting later in the week, in which analysts expect the central bank to hint at a rate cut in September.

Ontario Teacher’s Finance Trust has hired banks for a dollar benchmark trade, in a week expected to be characterised by blank screens in dollar issuance.

Ex-ANZ and UBS banker Allison MacKinnon will join RBC Capital Markets to lead its debt capital markets offering for UK companies.

France’s EDF has signed two sustainability-linked revolving credit facilities totalling €600m. Now almost half of the energy company’s credit lines are priced against environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics.

The UK’s Cubico Sustainable Investments has signed a €75m project finance facility, with the renewable energy investor refinancing solar assets mostly bought earlier this year.

Banca Popolare di Sondrio is set to become the latest Italian bank to access the market for subordinated debt this month, tapping into a thirst for yield among European investors.

Financial institutions have nearly already raised as much green bond funding in 2019 as they did across the whole of last year, with LBBW’s funding chief suggesting that the market is still ‘growing on both sides’ as it is seeing more investor demand and issuer interest.

As core markets in the northern hemisphere begin to cool, SSA issuers are looking towards a Kiwi and Aussie periphery unaffected by the summer close.

India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp has launched a $500m loan into general syndication to pay back a bond maturing this year.

Singaporean commodities company Trafigura has returned to the loan market for its annual borrowing, seeking a $1bn-equivalent to test the market’s appetite for the deal.

Chinese real estate developer Zhenro Properties Group has raised HK$1.21bn ($154.8m) from a top-up share placement.

Geely Automobile Holdings has made a rapid return to China’s auto loan ABS market with a Rmb4bn ($581.5m) deal that was a hit with the onshore arms of international banks. While the class A1 tranche was priced tightly, the issuer had to pay up for the mezzanine portion.