Europe

Romain Lanier has joined Perella Weinberg Partners from fellow advisory firm PJT Partners to be a managing director in the European financial restructuring team.

Bank debt investors believe there is more than just a hunt for yield behind the sector’s strong performance this year, with fund managers arguing that European financial institutions have made good progress in raising capital and cleaning up their balance sheets.

Goldman Sachs was set to price a new euro-denominated bond on Wednesday, the first unsecured transaction from a financial institution in about two weeks. With demand peaking at €2.7bn, the issuance could encourage other issuers to follow suit.

ZF Friedrichshafen is targeting the end of August to launch its grand return to the Schuldschein market, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The German car parts maker’s €2.2bn issue in November 2014 is the biggest deal the market has ever seen but a bigger deal may be on the way.

Equity capital markets bankers and investors are coming to terms with the idea that there may not be a trade deal to end tensions between the US and China this year, despite the former delaying some of its latest tariffs on Chinese goods until the end of the year.

Disruption in Italian politics has punished the BTP market this week as the country heads towards a possible autumn general election.

UniCredit has picked an internal candidate to be its global head of natural resources, choosing Eriks Atvars, currently global head of structured trade and export finance (STEF).

Burford Capital, the litigation funder, is under pressure over how it accounts for an obscure type of asset and how it finances its business using debt. In many respects it is a unique case, but it is a debacle fuelled by quantitative easing. With more of that on the way, pushing investors into ever more esoteric asset classes in the quest for yield, there will be plenty more businesses under scrutiny.

Recession fears are rising again as GDP slows, global trade tensions rise and overvalued stock markets become more volatile. Big tech should take advantage of high price to earnings ratios to raise equity capital now and to prepare for tougher days ahead.

German housing company Gewobag has closed a Schuldschein in the next few days with well over €1bn of orders, in a transaction that could be the largest of this year so far.

A number of highly anticipated emerging market IPO issuers are understood to have shifted listing plans to next year instead of the last quarter of 2019.

UK Sonia-linked covered bonds were trading stably on Tuesday, in contrast to euro denominated UK covered bonds which have been marked wider amid rising expectations the UK will crash out of the European Union. But, with macro-economic risks abounding, the global picture is disturbing bankers.