Citi

Norwegian oil exploration and production company Aker BP is positioning itself as an investment grade issuer with a new dual tranche dollar mandate, with a call targeting bond buyers with IG mandates, and an unsecured issue structure. The company received its second IG rating last November.

Asian bond issuers went full speed ahead with their fundraising plans on Monday, launching new deals ahead of Chinese New Year holidays at the end of the month.

The European Investment Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank amassed strong demand from investors to kick off their funding programmes for the year on Friday, with the former receiving the biggest ever order book in the sterling supranational and agency bond market, according to the leads.

The Federal State of Lower Saxony sold the first euro public sector benchmark of 2020 with a well received 10 year deal on Thursday. Meanwhile, the European Investment Bank is keeping to tradition of beginning its benchmark funding for the year in sterling.

The end of 2019 was a bumper time for equity block trades in EMEA. After many of these accelerated trades generated strong, market-beating returns for investors, banks are hoping funds will have goodwill towards the market, supporting a strong start to 2020.

Blackstone-backed Mindspace Business Parks Real Estate Investment Trust (Reit) is preparing an IPO of new and existing stock, set to be just the second listing from the asset class in India.

TrailStone Group, the gas and power trader and investor based in London, has closed the year with a €150m revolving credit facility, which complies with the Green Loan Principles.

Karolina Burmeister has been appointed country head for Finland at Citigroup.

Citi has named Adrian Khoo and Benjamin Ng as co-heads of debt capital markets for Asia, a move that will see more integration of the bonds and loans teams.

In the fourth and final instalment of GlobalCapital Asia’s capital markets awards announcements, find out which firms have been named the Best Asian Investment Bank and the Best Investment Bank in the region for 2019.

Lenovo Group, one of the world’s largest computer and electronics makers, lost a long time financing partner when IBM decided to close its factoring operation for hardware equipment manufacturers in February, GlobalCapital can reveal. But Lenovo moved fast to replace this with one of the largest trade receivables securitizations ever signed. The $3bn deal included selling junior notes to three investors to maintain full off balance sheet treatment for the assets and debt.

A €200m bond add-on for UK-based car maker Jaguar Land Rover, announced on Tuesday, follows €800m of unsecured notes issued in mid-November. Jaguar was drawn to a balmy post-election market that rewarded it with favourable pricing and encouraged it to increase the deal.