Banks

The City of London Corporation, via its endowment fund the City’s Cash, is set to enter the US private placement market for the first time. While UK councils are still a rare sight in the US PP market, agents believe they may be a fruitful asset class for the future. Silas Brown reports.

PARIS PRIVATE DEBT ROUNDTABLE European private debt markets are developing fast and diversifying — although many market participants would rather they became standardised. The Euro Private Placement market, founded in France, has not blossomed into a rival to the US PP. Many French issuers now travel to Germany’s larger Schuldschein market.

German agriculture, energy, logistics and services group BayWa printed a €500m five year green bond on Monday, building a strong €750m book — despite some ambiguity about how to treat the unrated corporate.

Dutch agency BNG via DZ Bank has placed the first ‘smart n-bond’, a Namensschuldverschreibung (NSV) issued through digital platform European private placement facility (eppf). Participants hailed this transaction as a step towards a functioning pan-European private placement market.

Renault issued a €1bn bond from its industrial arm on Monday, after a tumultuous few weeks in which the company had negotiated a (for now) abandoned merger offer from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. The deal came amid a busy flurry of smaller issues.

Becci McKinley-Rowe will join BlackRock later this year to co-lead the investment firm’s fundamental active equities business for the Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Patrick Drahi’s BidFair USA vehicle has agreed to take auction house Sotheby’s private for $3.7bn, a premium of 61% to Sotheby’s closing share price on Friday. BNP Paribas has provided committed debt financing for the all-cash deal, with Morgan Stanley joining as financial advisor.

For its dedication to advocacy for the derivatives industry’s improvement, investment in meaningful technological change and its ability to adapt quickly to change, Citi is GlobalCapital’s Americas Derivatives House of the Year, as well as its Clearing House of the Year and Research and Strategy House of the Year.

NatWest Markets is piloting a bilateral loan option for some of its corporate clients that uses the Sonia benchmark instead of the scandal-hit Libor, in a move the bank says is a first for the market.

Germany’s Rodenstock has agreed €415m of bank debt, as the eyeglasses company’s financial metrics show sharp improvement following a recent strategic restructuring.

Citigroup is in the market with a refinancing of metals waste management company Befesa, following Triton Partners’ exit from the 18.6% stake it held in the company earlier this month through a block trade. The company is raising a €526m loan to refinance its existing 2022 loan of the same amount.

Ex-Standard Chartered and JP Morgan banker Matthew Dunker is moving to Nomura.