Europe

The Manchester Airport Group, which owns Manchester, East Midlands and London Stansted airports, launched a £350m bond on Wednesday. In an investment grade corporate bond market that had otherwise been empty of new issues in the first half of the week, the deal was covered more than 3.5 times.

Asset manager Pemberton has closed a private debt fund called Strategic Credit Opportunities Strategy (SCOS) at €1bn, with a target of 13% gross returns for its limited partners, in euros.

Millicom International Cellular, the emerging markets-focused telecoms group, is planning to issue its first sustainable bond. It published a Sustainability Bond Framework on Tuesday and will issue with a high yield rating.

Michele Colocci has left JP Morgan and will rejoin Morgan Stanley as chairman of M&A.

Santander attracted strong demand for a €1.5bn 12 year covered bond issued on Tuesday, helped by the rarity of Spanish covered bond supply and the relatively attractive return over mid-swaps.

Amid criticism of the effect of quantitative easing (QE) on asset prices, the Bank of England could buy themed government bonds instead of regular Gilts in the next downturn, according to Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. This would be designed to ensure that QE directly helped the economy.

This year’s covered bond market's performance could come back to bite it. Limited supply should support the market, but ultra-tight spreads and low yields have left investors vulnerable to a sell-off — not least because they have been forced to extend duration in search of a return.

Jefferies is nearing the completion of its EM sales and trading team started 2.5 years ago, with two more hires in London.

Barclays has wasted little time in accessing the debt markets after publishing first quarter results, selling senior bonds out of its holding company in both dollars and sterling this week.

US blue chips' strong earnings numbers are spurring the belief that the improving economic fundamentals are behind the global equity rally of the first four months. But investors fear that their peers' confidence is fragile and an unforeseen geopolitical event could deal it a heavy blow.

Walter Ahlström is joining Swedbank as its new head of corporate finance in Finland, as part of its strategy to grow its equity capital markets business and team. He is joining from Carnegie, where he had worked in Finnish ECM. He had been there for nearly four years.

The Bank of England will publish the minutes of its policy meeting on Thursday, with investors and bank analysts aligned in thinking that a Brexit extension will see a small but noticeable move towards more hawkish language from the bank.