Europe

Belarusian food retailer Eurotorg has hit the Russian rouble-denominated debt capital markets for the second time this year, raising a Rb3.5bn ($52m) loan.

Asset manager Pemberton has raised €3.2bn for a direct lending fund focusing on Europe’s mid-market. This is a few months after it raised €1bn for another European direct lending platform, Strategic Credit Opportunities Strategy (SCOS), which has higher expectations on returns.

Shares in Adyen, the Dutch payments technology company, were eagerly taken up by investors during a €309m block trade on Thursday evening sold by its founders.

The Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (VDP) has introduced minimum standards for issuing green Pfandbriefe, a development that should help seal Germany’s position as a leading jurisdiction for green covered bond issuance.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has accused Deutsche Bank of hiring relatives of executives of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the Asia Pacific and Russia, in order to win business from those entities.

Huw van Steenis is joining UBS next month as head of investor relations and chair of a new sustainable finance committee.

E.On has opened a new era. While several investment grade companies have printed bonds at negative yields before, few have come close to the -0.149% at which the Baa2/BBB rated German power company reached with the five year wing of its €1.5bn dual tranche deal on Wednesday.

Europe's bond market reopened for the autumn issuance season this week — but it is a new bond market. The summer's queasy bout of bearishness has pushed government bond yields to unprecedented lows and these are now for the first time being tested as a platform for private sector bond issuance.

Berlin Hyp, the German mortgage bank, this week set a new record with the most negative yielding covered bond, a transaction that should bolster the confidence of other borrowers who can no longer put off issuing such deals.

Guarantor: All Danish municipalities and regions

Volkswagen Financial Services printed a £300m 3.25 year bond on Thursday that was twice oversubscribed. It has not been long since the A3/BBB+ rated German carmaker came to the sterling market. Only last month it sold a £350m three year note.

Public sector borrowers will have to contend with much more difficult funding conditions in euros when they arrive en masse following the summer beak, according to SSA bankers.