Barclays

The Council of Europe Development bank will come to market on Thursday for a $500m no-grow social inclusion bond maturing in June 2024.

Commodities brokerage Marex Group has opened the books on its £100m plus IPO on the London Stock Exchange.

Times China Holdings, Yango Group and Greenland Hong Kong Holdings, all of which are real estate developers, raised $840m between them from the bond market on Thursday, continuing a recent revival in issuance from the sector.

Europe’s high grade corporate market this week saw one of its busiest days of the year, with a touch over €4.5bn printed from eight tranches on Wednesday, and investors lapped up most of the deals with ease.

University College London has issued the first public ESG-labelled bond from the UK’s higher education sector, which it priced flat to fair value. But bankers say that while the demand is there, a lack of supply means deals like this are going to be a rarity.

University College London has issued the first public ESG-labelled bond from the UK’s higher education sector, which it priced flat to fair value.

Santander and Barclays ended multi-year absences from the Swiss franc market to land a pair of senior deals flat to euros this week as funding diversification trumped arbitrage considerations.

AstraZeneca, the UK drug maker, hit the euro market on Wednesday after printing $7bn across the Atlantic a day earlier. The borrower is building up funds to pay for its $39bn acquisition of US rival Alexion Pharmaceuticals.

Hammerson, the UK property development company, launched a sustainability-linked bond through its Irish subsidiary on Wednesday, hoping to achieve a better cost of funds by printing a deal that was eligible for ECB buying. The still-nascent SLB market gave few comparables for the trade, leaving investors needing a range of metrics to try and determine fair value.

Europe’s high grade corporate bond market had a distinctly Spanish flavour on Tuesday as Cellnex and Merlin Properties issued. Some analysts predict that the healthy earnings season might mean a 15% rise in bond issuance from the European market.

Europe’s high grade corporate bond market began this shortened week for issuance with an ESG focus, as Australian engineering company Worley mandated for its debut sustainability-linked bond and UK housing association Notting Hill Genesis began marketing a sustainability deal.

Metropolitan Life ended an almost 12 month absence from euros this week as the insurer raced towards what could be its busiest year since 2019.