Banks

Beijing Enterprises Clean Energy Group is back in the offshore loan market, seeking a $150m borrowing seven months after its last deal.

GS names new equity syndicate head — HSBC promotes two in MENAT — Hennebry steps up at Santander — Together hires Harrison

The bank has removed leadership uncertainty but the coronavirus means HSBC’s restructuring will be delayed.

In spite of an equity sell-off on Wednesday morning, Portugal was warmly received when it hit the market on Wednesday, printing its largest ever single tranche deal and generating more orders than ever before. The deal should provide confidence for Ireland, which is also planning a syndication.

The high yield bond leg of the rescue package for cruise company Carnival is flying off the shelves in the dollar market, leading the company to increase it from $3bn to $4bn, cut pricing, and drop the planned euro tranche entirely — but the equity capital raising is proving tougher and has been shrunk by $500m.

KfW made an impressive statement by taking out size with a small new issue premium for a three year euro deal on Wednesday. Bankers say the deal is a sign of concessions reaching a floor following the huge premiums offered since the return of SSAs to the primary market.

The European Investment Bank joined the ranks of supranationals issuing debt to support the fight against Covid-19 this week, using its recently updated sustainability awareness bond (SAB) framework to raise Skr3bn ($299m) to finance its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The power of central bank buying and fund redemptions are evident this week in the European investment grade corporate bond market, where issuers have been squeezed into a narrow range of maturities as they search for cash.

L-Bank mandated banks on Wednesday for a second attempt at a two year dollar benchmark after it had to pull a deal in the same currency and maturity two weeks ago following a lack of demand. This time, it has opted for a more conventional approach of a traditional syndication and will follow a string of well received trades in the short end of the dollar curve.

Helaba has appointed two new syndicate bankers as it looks to bolster its coverage of FIG and SSA clients. The hires are among the first following a restructuring of the German bank’s capital markets business.

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary capital markets activity. The North American corporate bond market funded a staggering record $194bn of investment grade issues in March while Europe has also been busy — shaking up the league tables and yielding a surprise windfall for the very largest investment banks.

Lloyds Bank is looking to buy back one of its more costly perpetual tier one capital instruments, after its valuation collapsed in March. The move took some market participants by surprise, since it would have been approved by UK authorities, which are at the same time insisting that the country's banks conserve their capital levels during the coronavirus crisis.