Banks

Shares in Funding Circle Holdings, the UK peer-to-peer lending platform, closed up on Thursday despite the company reporting a widening loss in 2018 because of the costs of its £440m IPO on the London Stock Exchange in September.

Following the success of its first 10 year bond in almost a decade, Greece is looking to have a frequent presence in the debt capital markets. The sovereign may even return with either a tap or a new issue this year, even though it has met its minimum planned issuance of benchmark bonds for 2019 and has a significant cash buffer.

EMEA loans bankers are taking some positives from developments in the wider capital markets.

The European Central Bank struck a decidedly dovish tone at its meeting on Thursday, meaning there were no nasty surprises for SSAs planning bond issues in the coming days. A French agency is on screens for a deal in dollars this Friday, while euro and dollar benchmarks are slated for next week.

Pearson, the UK educational publisher, has signed a $1.2bn bank facility with a novel margin link to the company’s progress in educational reach, but loans bankers say that this increasingly popular form of funding is unlikely to drag the market out of its low volume melancholy.

The Asian Development Bank broke two records on Thursday as it printed its biggest sterling deal to date and took non-UK SSA issuance in the currency to a record level for a half year. Supply is likely to take a breather next week due to some crucial Brexit votes in the UK Parliament, but SSA bankers are confident the market will not take long to spark back into life.

Emirates NBD has picked banks for a bond in the additional tier one format, aiming to be the second such deal from a Middle East bank this year.

The State of Qatar wowed the financial world on Wednesday with a $12bn three tranche deal that gathered a staggering $50bn of orders.

Two Turkish borrowers hit the market on Thursday, one returning to the market after a six year hiatus. Coming in the wake of a Koc Holding deal this week, the three deals make this Turkey’s busiest week for deals in almost three years.

Futu Holdings, the parent of Hong Kong-based Futu Securities, has pulled off the first IPO by a Chinese online brokerage. The company was on track to raise $160m on Thursday after making a late change to the deal, cutting the size of its float and adding a private placement to an international fund. Jonathan Breen reports.

Intesa Sanpaolo is set to return to Japan to sell a second series of securities in the Tokyo Pro-Bond market, after opening the market for the first time for Italian issuers in February 2018.

Xinyi Group (Glass) Co has launched a block trade of Xinyi Solar Holdings shares,. The company is looking to raise up to HK$1.35bn ($172.3m), according to a term sheet seen by GlobalCapital Asia.