Europe

Leveraged borrowers Adb Safegate and Groupe Ecore had active euro roadshows for floating rate debt, keeping the leveraged finance markets open this week.

Italian construction firm Cooperativa Muratori e Cementisti di Ravenna officially announced it would miss the November 15 coupon payment of its 2023 bonds.

The Flemish Community of Belgium was twice covered for its debut sustainability bond on Monday, following the completion of a pan-European roadshow last week. Meanwhile, Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten has added to the SRI pipeline after mandating banks for its second sustainability trade of the year.

After Volkswagen printed the biggest trade in its history the previous week, the company’s International Finance arm sold a six tranche dual-currency deal on Monday. In total, the company raised more than €14bn equivalent in a week.

Spain’s Red Electrica Corporation has signed the first ever syndicated loan on a blockchain, though some loans officials away from the deal question how useful the technology will be in its goal of reducing transaction times.

Holders of HSH Nordbank’s tier one securities have reacted angrily to the German bank’s announcement that it expects to write the instruments down further. Bondholders are also meeting later this month to vote on taking legal action against the bank.

The Single Resolution Board has said that it could introduce ‘bank-specific transition periods’ for bonds that have been issued under English law and would otherwise cease to count towards the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL) after Brexit.

Bankers have confirmed that Russian Copper Company (RCC) is set to close its second five year $250m pre-export credit facility before the end of the year. But the jury is still out as to whether the loan market will be able to brave the ongoing Russian sanctions.

The EMEA equity blocks market enjoyed a second night of momentum of Thursday after the results of the US midterm elections kicked off trading this week, with two large transactions being priced.

The Republic of Slovenia has priced the flotation of Nova Ljubljanska Banka at a final offer price which values the bank at €1bn, fulfilling a commitment to privatise the bank before the end of the year.

Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) broadened its investor base on Friday with its first sterling covered bond in six years. The deal was set to price in line with a similar five year Sonia-linked bond issued this week by Coventry Building Society but with less demand. Even so, supply hopes remain alive.

DBS Bank is planning a roadshow ahead of its first dollar covered bond in over three years, and the first from a Singaporean bank since February 2017. The expected deal follows two large Canadian benchmarks and shows that dollar covered bond funding is becoming more compelling than euros.