Banks

UK listed fund GCP Infrastructure has increased the size of its revolving credit facilities to £165m, as the infrastructure investment company continues to draw heavily on its bank lending lines.

US medical technology company Stryker had to wait longer than it planned for its debut in the European corporate bond market, but when the chance to launch the deal came on Tuesday, it achieved the hat-trick it was aiming for with an extra tranche added for good measure.

Commerzbank proved less popular than some of its peers with a new offering of short dated preferred senior debt this week, but the German lender was able to walk away from the euro market with €1.4bn of funding.

Belgian chemicals manufacturer Solvay sold its first public corporate bonds for three years on Tuesday when it reopened the European hybrid bond market, which has not seen a new issue since September. Despite the recent dearth of issuance, the market is still set to record an increase of more than 57% on 2017’s total volume.

The Federation of Russia is returning to the bond markets for the first time since a set of US sanctions in April sent the country’s bond trading into a tailspin. But despite books for the bond already being in excess of €1bn, several bankers away from the deal are describing it as a “political statement” rather than a well thought out trade, and are heavily criticising the timing and choice of euros for the note.

HSBC Holdings took €2.25bn out of the euro market on Tuesday, raising funding to meet its total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) target. The bank recently sold bonds aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, but switched to its green framework for one tranche in this week’s trade.

National Australia Bank (NAB) was looking for execution certainty when heading to the dollar market to sell a pair of senior unsecured and covered bonds on Monday. But with credit conditions improving on Tuesday, Westpac shaved a few basis points off the cost of funding compared with its peer by opting for euros in covered and senior formats.

Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ), the Kazakh state-owned rail company, sold Sfr150m five year Swiss franc bonds on Tuesday, in choppy market conditions.

Perella Weinberg Partners (PWP) has ramped up its drive for senior talent with the appointment of former Deutsche Bank finance director Marcus Schenck.

On Monday, Austrian oil and gas company OMV’s first senior corporate bonds of 2018 attracted €3.9bn of total demand for a pair of €500m notes with five year and 10 year tenors. The demand allowed the issuer to tighten the spread by more than 20bp on the longer tranche.

Thailand’s Strategic Hospitality Extendable Freehold and Leasehold Reit is set to launch a Bt3.96bn ($120m) sale of new units next month.

Mumbai-headquartered Metropolis Healthcare has been given the go ahead to list by the Securities and Exchange Board of India, paving the way for an equity sale by two shareholders.