Europe

Austria’s OMV has signed €3bn of revolving credit facilities, in what bankers that worked on the deal are calling the largest existing deal of its kind in the Austrian market.

London-listed The Renewables Infrastructure Group (Trig) has amended and extended its sterling revolving acquisition facility, cutting the margin and increasing the size.

A Dutch court is expected to rule next year that the former creditors of SNS are entitled to compensation for losses they suffered as a result of the bank’s nationalisation in 2013. This episode is being followed closely by the bondholders that were more recently wiped out in the resolution of Banco Popular, who feel that the two cases have a lot in common.

Russian financial markets were greeted with mixed news on Wednesday after the US Treasury announced sanctions relief for EN+ and Rusal on the same day as imposing more sanctions on Russian individuals.

The European Central Bank has said that its swap arrangement with the Bank of England, which would help financial firms access liquidity in a foreign currency, would not be affected if the UK leaves the EU with no deal.

Swedish aerospace and defence company Saab has finished its Skr6bn (€581m) rights issue with enough demand to almost cover the deal twice over.

Bankers have confirmed that Garanti Bank has closed syndication for a $1.15bn refinancing loan this week.

EMEA IPO volumes are around 19% down from last year in the final week of December. Despite that it is is still the ECM asset class that has best weathered the year's volatility. But in a year of disparate performance, GlobalCapital runs through the best and the worst of the EMEA IPOs in 2018.

Italian government bond yields hit multi-month lows following an agreement with the European Commission over the country's 2019 budget deficit target on Wednesday, ending a long and drawn out stand-off that had spooked BTP investors.

Austria’s Verbund has joined the ESG-linked revolving credit facility fray, with the electricity company signing what leads say is the first such deal in the country.

GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer have agreed to combine their consumer health businesses to create a market leading joint venture with sales of around £9.8bn. The companies expect to divest assets to cover the cash cost of the integration.

S4 Capital, the digital and marketing services company created by Martin Sorrell, the former CEO of WPP, has finished its £74m placing and open offer to finance its merger with MightyHive, the California-based digital advertising company.