Europe

Barclays' head of private capital markets for Europe, the Middle East and Africa has decided to leave the bank.

Three new investment grade corporate bonds appeared in Europe on Friday, a slower pace than the frenetic one of Tuesday and Wednesday, but still adding €1.6bn to the already huge total of €15.5bn in the middle three days of this week.

The UK Debt Management Office on Friday announced the syndicate that will run its forthcoming tap of the 2054 Gilt, as well as its plans for a further Gilt syndication to be held during the third quarter of 2019.

Issuance is starting to resume after the summer break; however, this week a booming public market drew away investor and issuer attention from MTNs. Despite this, a range of established SSA, FIG and corporate borrowers have slipped in, with deals across core, niche and EM currencies.

A block in Ferrovial, the Spanish transport infrastructure company that partly owns Heathrow airport, was met with strong demand last night during an accelerated trade.

Standard & Poor’s is due to opine on Romania’s creditworthiness after markets close on Friday, though analysts think the sovereign will be strong enough to hold on to its investment grade rating despite major political upheaval.

CK Hutchison Holdings has launched a takeout deal into syndication to replace a €10.4bn bridge loan raised by Wind Tre, an Italian company it acquired last year.

In this round-up, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce indicated that it might hold off tariff retaliation, the country announced the establishment of six new free trade zones (FTZs) and the People’s Bank of China has asked banks to price loans based on the new loan prime rate (LPR) mechanism immediately.

European and US banks are facing pressure to become more diverse, for reasons of business and ethics. One senior investment banker at UniCredit, which has implemented a far-reaching initiative in the area, said that the logic is clear.

Europe’s corporate bond market has made a remarkably strong start to the autumn issuing season, with €14bn of euro and sterling issuance in the first two open days for issuance (Tuesday and Wednesday) and another €1.5bn on Thursday.

After two huge days of corporate bond issuance, Thursday was much quieter, with issues only from Vier Gas Transport and SBB Norden — not because the market was worse, but just because most of the issuers that wanted to come this week had crowded into the first two days.

Existing shareholders were shown no mercy as Thomas Cook’s creditors and Chinese conglomerate Fosun reached an initial £900m agreement to recapitalise the company and divide up the assets. The creditors get most of the healthier airline business, while Fosun takes the bulk of the declining package holiday business.