Europe

A financial institutions debt capital markets banker at Lloyds Bank is moving over to the syndicate desk.

Mark Corben, who has been chief financial officer at Tideway, the private company building the super-sewer under the Thames in London and the UK's biggest green bond issuer, is leaving.

The Schuldschein market's heavy reliance on car industry borrowers means the prospects of trade wars affecting the sector are worrying investors and arrangers alike.

Market pessimism has deepened after Lebara, the troubled UK-based mobile virtual network operator, failed to release financial results again this week. An offer to pay bondholders a temporary extra spread of up to 700bp is not expected to lift its bond price.

Daimler raised €3bn on Tuesday with a blockbuster bond offering of three tranches, each of which was heavily oversubscribed. The deal comes in an empty new issue market and is unusually large for this time of year.

The Republic of Austria has reduced its benchmark government bond funding target for 2018 by 15%, mainly due to a further downpayment from the sale of bad bank assets.

An exemption for Canadian covered bonds from bail-in is positive, said Fitch this week despite a general concern about the lack collateral available in some covered bonds, and an overvalued Canadian housing market.

Ferd Invest sold a stake in Petroleum Geo-Services, the Norwegian company that provides surface imaging to oil and gas exploration companies, on Monday night after the stock rallied due to higher oil prices over the past 12 months.

Imperial Brands, the UK tobacco group, sold a €265m block in Spanish retail distribution firm Logista after market close on Monday night, in order to raise funds to reduce its debt.

Vienna Insurance Group is redeeming a legacy tier one note next month, but does not intend to replace it with a restricted tier one (RT1) bond. Once one Austrian or German insurer issues, others will follow, according to CreditSights.

Sweden has become the latest European country to announce a rise in the level of the countercyclical buffer rate for its banks, citing a recent surge in risk taking.

Investment house Kartesia has provided a unitranche loan for Spanish fertiliser maker Fertiberia to replace part of its debt, as this type of lending becomes more popular in Europe.