Europe

Bankinter found plenty of demand for a new senior transaction on Wednesday, as the Spanish lender entered a strong market to refinance its only other outstanding senior bond.

The US-led equity rally of the first two months of 2019 is likely to continue, says Eddie Perkin, chief investment officer of Eaton Vance. In an interview with GlobalCapital, he said this should prompt an increase in equity capital markets issuance, and stronger investor returns than many would have expected after a terrible end to last year.

The Russian sovereign is expected to come to market for a Eurobond, perhaps as early as March, but some investors are concerned that the strained diplomatic relations between Russia and the West make its paper too dangerous to invest in.

Turkish lender QNB Finansbank has mandated six banks to arrange a dollar 5.5 year Reg S/144A benchmark senior bond, the first senior bond from a Turkish bank since March.

Investors have moved on quickly from the first ever non-call decision on an additional tier one instrument this month, allowing banks to thrive in the new issue market. The feeling among some funds is that any fears about extension risk have simply been overdone.

Standard Chartered posted stronger numbers for financial markets products last quarter than its peers, with the investment bank also reducing credit impairment levels.

It is richly ironic that incoming measures meant to take Europe one big step closer to completing its Banking Union have ended up recognising that nothing of the sort actually exists.

US Solar Fund PLC, a new investment fund that will focus on investing in US solar assets, is seeking to raise $250m through a listing on the London Stock Exchange.

Spain's no-grow €5bn 15 year syndication on Tuesday was only marginally short of breaking the record order book for a public sector euro benchmark that the sovereign set only last month, despite some investors saying that the deal offered little or no concession.

Erste Abwicklungsanstalt (EAA)’s decision to forego the price discovery process on its first benchmark of 2019 paid off, as the issuer printed more than its original target for the dollar deal on Tuesday at a level that some SSA bankers away from the deal said may have been slightly through its secondary curve.

Switzerland’s Roche has agreed to buy US company Spark Therapeutics for around $4.8bn, with analysts predicting minimal impact on the healthcare multinational’s credit metrics thanks to large forecasted free cash flow.

A pair of UK names are in talks to amend and extend their existing debt, as loans bankers again complain that the high grade loan market continues to be populated with pseudo-refinancings that are cheaper than the real thing.