Europe

Shares in Serco, the UK outsourcing company, rose more than 8% on Thursday morning after the company announced a £130m growth capital raise to finance the takeover of Alion’s naval design and systems engineering business, a leading supplier of services to the US armed forces.

Vehicle leasing firm LeasePlan Corporation issued its debut additional tier one capital on Thursday, a rare move for a firm outside the conventional banking sector. Pricing of the €500m perpetual non-call five year was not tightened from initial price thoughts.

Bank of Queensland was able on Thursday to shave off the new issue premium for its new covered bond. It offered a juicy spread at a time when supply of high coupon deals in the asset class is threatened by the European Central Bank’s liquidity operations.

Bankers have come under increasing pressure to integrate financial technology into their syndicated lending businesses. But they are ill equipped to deal with the work of integrating new systems, according to a survey conducted by the Loan Market Association (LMA).

France is ready to relaunch its stalled privatisation programme with the IPO of Française des Jeux (FDJ), the national lottery operator and sports betting company. Sam Kerr reports.

NN Bank entered the market on Thursday to seek €500m of senior funding, while Oberbank and Capital One are the latest names to announce plans to raise funding in the format in euros.

Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) placed a $500m seven year bond on Wednesday inside its own curve and at its tightest ever spread to the Russian sovereign, according to a lead manager on the deal.

The head of sovereign, supranational and agency (SSA) debt capital markets at NatWest Markets will move to the bank’s Paris office over the summer as part of preparations for the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, GlobalCapital understands.

BNP Paribas has appointed Bruno Villard as head of M&A for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Société Générale has moved one of its London bankers to Hong Kong to take over as head of the Asia Pacific debt capital markets syndicate team.

Three new French corporate bond issues came in Europe on Wednesday, as issuers decided it was worth exploring the very receptive demand in euros and sterling.

CME Group’s fixed income electronic trading platforms business is launching a dealer-to-client Request for Quote (RFQ) trading product for the European repo market.