Europe

Sam Woods, chief executive of the UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority, has said that banks and insurers should lose preferred capital treatment for EU exposures in the event of a no-deal Brexit. But in that situation the regulator would not be likely to force the change on firms straight away.

German fashion house Gerry Weber has filed for insolvency after failing to repay a Schuldschein tranche last November and after subsequent discussions with lenders about restructuring the company broke down. The result is that Schuldschein lenders are out of pocket and have yet another example of default in a market ill-suited to the idea. Silas Brown investigates.

The day after the UK government mandated Teresa May to go to Brussels and renegotiate the country’s exit agreement with the European Union, the UK electricity transmission company National Grid tested investors’ appetites for UK assets and found a host of willing buyers without having to offer much of a premium.

Miles Millard, formerly head of capital markets and treasury solutions at Deutsche Bank, has re-emerged at executive search firm JD Haspel.

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) issued on Tuesday a report criticising several core elements of the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI) — the so-called Juncker investment plan.

Rabobank, Sparebank 1 Boligkreditt and Société Générale issued most highly rated deals this January and BNP Paribas has, on average, worked on the most highly rated deals so far this year according to GlobalCapital's BondMarker.

January has proven to be the quietest start to the year in a decade for EMEA ECM.

Argenta Spaarbank wasted little time in the process of selling its first senior unsecured bond on Wednesday, as the Belgian bank rode a strong tone in the euro market to raise €500m of funding.

The covered bond market looked well supported on Wednesday as Sparebank Soer Boligkreditt issued the most highly oversubscribed deal of the year, which was priced flat to its curve. With all new issues tightening bankers are hopeful that Italian and Greek supply could soon follow.

Investors have come out in huge numbers to buy the three corporate hybrid deals that have been sold so far in 2019. However, the excess demand is unlikely to be sated as the year unfolds.

Additional tier ones issued by Banco Santander plunged in value on Wednesday, after the Spanish financial institution reiterated that it would only redeem capital securities at their first call dates if it was cost efficient to do so.

Investors are looking to put cash to work in the primary European government bond market after yields failed to rise as the European Central Bank's Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) ended as had been feared.