Europe

US toymaker Hasbro is to take up on $3.6bn new debt to buy media company Entertainment One, acquiring porcine superstar Peppa Pig, among other brands, if rival bidders don’t scupper the deal. Hasbro may choose to pay a make-whole price to Entertainment One’s bondholders, who bought the company's issue less than three months ago, a research company predicts.

Europe's corporate bond market opened emphatically for business on Tuesday, as seven issuers banished all memories of the summer holiday. Despite there being plenty of choice for investors, demand was high across the board. Multiple deals were two to three times oversubscribed, while the largest, a €3.5bn four trancher from Siemens, the machinery maker, was nearly 4.5 times covered.

VC Trade, one of the leading digital platforms in the Schuldschein market, has introduced an e-signature into its syndication process, which its founders claim renders the syndication process totally paperless. An impediment to paperless transactions has been market participants’ fear of regulatory and legal consequences — but VC Trade believes it has managed to navigate a way over these hurdles.

HSBC France and Svenska Handelsbanken avoided issuing senior bonds at negative yields in a busy new issue market on Tuesday, but bankers said it was only a 'matter of time' before someone takes the plunge below 0% with an unsecured deal.

ING slapped a one year call option on a senior deal from its holding company on Tuesday — a practice that is rapidly becoming the norm for European banks considering how to meet their minimum requirements for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL).

The UK Debt Management Office has announced that it is planning to reopen its 2054 Gilt through syndication in the week beginning September 9.

KBC only needed to offer a slim new issue premium to attract €2bn of demand for a new tier two bond this week. The deal pricing was squeezed by 20bp from initial price thoughts, resembling senior deals from other issuers.

Nykredit Realkredit was one of the smallest banks looking to get funding away in a busy euro market on Tuesday, but it was able to command the attention of investors without needing to offer a higher spread.

François Jourdain is joining Deutsche Bank as head of treasury markets and investments.

Investors were clambering over one another to get a piece of a perpetual bond from Swiss Re on Tuesday, as insurance companies like ASR Nederland and Beazley began lining up deals for the autumnal issuance window.

Bawag was keen to alert investors on Tuesday to the imminent sale of its first non-preferred senior bond, which is expected to fit neatly alongside a similar deal from its Austrian peer Erste Group.

This week's funding scorecard looks at the progress French agencies have made in their funding programmes as we reach the end of August.