Europe

RCI Banque followed Volkswagen Financial Services' triple tranche bond issue on Monday with its own two-part issue on Wednesday. Both car finance banks, as very regular issuers, are unlikely to command the absolute tightest pricing relative to their secondary curves, but demand has also cooled somewhat this week, compared with the avid tone of recent weeks. Nevertheless, pricing tightened a long way.

Total, the French oil company, issued a €1.5bn hybrid capital bond on Wednesday, at the same time as launching a tender offer to buy back some of its €2.5bn call February 2021 and €1.75bn call May 2022 hybrids.

David Sismey has decided to quit his senior financial institutions role at Goldman Sachs in order to pursue a career in British politics.

Italy has issued a yen bond for the first time since 2009. The deal, led by Nomura, is also its first issue in a foreign currency since 2010.

Tim Throsby, CEO of Barclays International and Barclays Bank, has quit the company, as it reorganises its corporate and investment bank.

Naspers, the South African technology conglomerate cheered European equity markets this week as it announced it would list its international assets in a new company on the Euronext Amsterdam. The company said that the deal would just be a spin-off transaction but sources close to the situation are not writing off the possibility of an IPO as well.

Lloyds Development Capital, the private equity division of Lloyds Bank, has completed the first selldown of shares in Team17, the UK games developer, since its IPO on the London Stock Exchange in May last year.

A head of syndicate for SSA, MTNs, and short term markets has left his employer of 15 years to enrol in a fintech course at Oxford University.

Almost everyone in the European corporate bond market admits they were wrongfooted by the storm of demand that has overwhelmed issuers this year. But the weather has changed again, as unexpectedly. From last week to this, the temperature is cooler and new issue premiums are, in most cases, back.

CVC sold a £271m chunk of its stake in Avast, the London-listed Czech cyber security company, on Tuesday evening but the stock traded below issue price throughout the day on Wednesday.

Evraz raised $700m with a five year bond on Wednesday as it returned to the fixed income market for the first time in two years. The company used the proceeds to finance a tender offer of its April 2020s.

Investment grade loans bankers are pinning more hope on the coming quarter after the slowest start to the year in the last five years.