Barclays

Senior deals from Banco de Sabadell and Mediobanca underlined the pricing benefits of printing in green formats this week, with both coming inside conventional curves. Other issuers could be tempted to follow.

Ex-Barclays banker joins Finsbury to develop equity advisory — Laubjerg hired for natural resources at HSBC — Rousseau leaves Deutsche and joins Citi

Chinese property developers China South City Holdings and Kaisa Group Holdings offered generous premiums for their bond outings this week in a bid to ensure strong aftermarket performance.

The top investment banks will achieve substantially higher returns on equity this year, predicts analytics firm Coalition, after revenues in fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) soared in the first half of the year.

Merck, the US pharmaceutical company, launched a chunky €1bn hybrid on Wednesday, as syndicate bankers said they expect even more subordinated corporate debt despite the flurry since returning from the summer break.

Glencore, the UK commodity trading company, captured the corporate bond market’s attention on Wednesday with the first test of demand for a cyclical credit since the summer break. Investors jumped at the deal, with leads launching it flat to the borrower’s curve.

Banco de Sabadell on Wednesday looked to replicate the success of Mediobanca earlier this week in capitalising on appetite for green bonds. Appetite for the Spanish lender’s inaugural green preferred senior bond led it to print the deal through fair value.

Virgin Money UK tested the strength of the sterling market this week by looking to raise tier two debt. The UK lender was able to tighten pricing by 50bp and print inside fair value, and the new trade accompanied a tender offer of the issuer’s old securities.

Germany received overwhelming support for its debut green bond on Wednesday, which was sold via syndication and twinned with a conventional Bund of the same maturity and coupon in what it is a brand new structure for issuing green debt.

Finsbury, the communications consultancy, has hired Justin Shinebourne, former head of equity advisory for Europe at Barclays.

All eyes in the primary euro public sector bond market are fixed on the expected arrival of Germany's green Bund this week, but there were still some other deals announced on Tuesday. Greece is sticking to its plan for a syndicated bond issuance every quarter and Berlin hopes to match the success of its compatriot Land NRW in the 30 year part of the curve.

Sweden’s long gestating green bond debut came to fruition this week as the sovereign scooped Skr20bn ($2.3bn) at a discount to its conventional curve.