Europe

Rainbow Rare Earths Ltd, the rare earth element mining company, has priced a £1.6m capital increase to finance a new mining development in Murambi, a remote town in Northern Rwanda.

Banca Carige’s covered bonds could soon be downgraded by Moody’s to sub-investment grade territory but, given the size and quality of the collateral pool, further downgrades could present a buying opportunity.

The need to offer healthy new issue premiums is not holding back additional tier one bond issuers this summer. Barclays reopened the market for the product in dollars on Tuesday, to be quickly followed by BNP Paribas.

Fallout from a diplomatic incident drove yields on Turkish sovereign paper to almost 20% this week. While yields have come off their highs, the picture remains bleak for the beleaguered nation.

Italy’s coalition government is taking investors on a wild ride, with different voices emanating from the populist grouping quickly shifting sentiment among the buy side. But the juicy spreads the sovereign offers over its peers has helped provide some respite from the sell-offs, said analysts.

The bumper IPO of Cepsa is likely going to give investors something different to look at when the market reopens in September with investors already excited by a number of new listings.

Buyers of speculative grade debt in Europe have entered August with renewed confidence and the hope that spreads can hold their recent widening during the second half of the year.

August is traditionally a slow month in the corporate bond market as the common perception is that many market participants are away from their desks enjoying their summer holidays. But recent deals have shown that investors are around, and are willing and able to buy.

Credit Suisse and Standard Chartered are providing a $1.1bn loan to back the delisting of Indian metal and mining company Vedanta Resources from the London Stock Exchange.

Sri Lanka and Turkey are preparing to sell their first Panda bonds, enticed by falling funding costs in China's bond markets. But given they both have lower credit ratings than previous sovereign Panda issuers, they may face an uphill battle as regulators scrutinise their finances.

Market participants should not become complacent about the battles that are still taking place over the handling of the resolution of Banco Popular, because the outcome is likely to form the blueprint for what will happen when any large European bank fails in the future.

Mutual Energy, an energy infrastructure company headquartered in Belfast, has sold £200m ($256.98m) of private placement notes in its first private debt outing.