Europe

Cross-border bank M&A in Europe is not completely dormant. Mediobanca has bought two-thirds of Messier Maris & Associés and will also partner with the French corporate finance house.

Finnish local government lender Municipality Finance has announced it is preparing to launch a social bond programme.

UniCredit said on Wednesday that it is one of the banks suspected of violating European Union competition rules in the purchase and trading of European government bonds between 2007 and 2012.

German defence firm Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) has signed a €350m loan, amid a wave of mid-market activity in the European loan market.

Banco BPM hit the euro market on Thursday with its first additional tier one (AT1), becoming only the third Italian bank to sell a deal in the asset class following national champions Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit.

Nexi, the Italian payments firm listing in Milan, is to price its IPO at €9 a share, just off the bottom of its initial price range.

Nykredit has published a green bond framework and intends to issue its first green covered bonds, in floating rate Danish kroner and Swedish kronor, in May. The benchmark deals are expected to qualify for the best capital and liquidity treatment.

Sacyr, the Spanish construction company, enjoyed a strong reception from equity-linked investors on Wednesday when it issued a new convertible bond that was increased to €175m off the back of unexpected demand from long-only funds.

Commerzbank analysts had been expecting a “very constructive market” in Swiss francs this week, bolstered by supportive cross-currency swaps and an uptick in the secondary market. It is questionable, however, if anybody foresaw the explosion of volume on Tuesday, when more than Sfr1bn ($997m) of new issuance had been priced by early afternoon.

Adevinta, the online classified advertising division of Schibsted, shone in the aftermarket on Wednesday after the company began trading on the Oslo Børs following its Nkr2.87bn (€298m) IPO.

Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten became the latest public sector borrower to hit the long end of the euro curve on Wednesday and found strong demand, which allowed it to increase the bond.

Thames Water’s latest crop of holding company private placement debt issues contains language to protect investors from the effect of a Labour government — and particularly leader Jeremy Corbyn's vow to renationalise the water companies. Debt issued under the new documents features a ‘nationalisation event’ that would make it repayable immediately. Owen Sanderson and Silas Brown report.