Europe

Speculation is rife that the European Central Bank will mimic the US Federal Reserve’s ‘Operation Twist’ from a few years ago, focusing reinvestments from redeeming bonds bought under the public sector purchase programme into long dated paper. While there has been some impact from the news, any benefit is likely to be limited.

Dutch residential property company Vesteda sold a €500m eight year bond on Tuesday to help refinance its acquisition of a Dutch property portfolio from Dutch financial services company NN Group.

On Wednesday the UK’s final court of appeal rejected Goldman Sachs’s attempt to recover money lost on a loan to Banco Espírito Santo through the British courts. The judge said the EU’s framework for dealing with failing banks might be undermined if the actions of resolution authorities could be challenged outside of their home country.

German healthcare company Fresenius this week opted to issue a €500m no-grow seven year trade following a roadshow, a choice which rewarded it with an order book that was more than five times subscribed.

Belgian postal operator Bpost announced a debut benchmark eight year deal within 48 hours of finishing an investor roadshow and achieved a very high quality order book for an eight year bond.

Barclays has returned to the Swiss franc bond market after an eight year absence.

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Equity investors have told GlobalCapital that they expect volatility to be a feature of markets for the rest of the year. But despite that, good economic data and the performance of the stronger IPOs so far this year means they will likely turn up in numbers for the right listing, writes Sam Kerr.

The €90m re-IPO of Belgian shoe retailer FNG was due to be priced at €27 on Thursday, above the bottom of the initial €26.25 to €29.75 range, according to a banker involved in the transaction.

Low cost telecoms group Lebara has delayed its plans for a redemption of its only bond from early July to August, the latest setback in its already long list of communication and disclosure failures.

KfW is looking for an extra €5bn of funding this year, after raising its 2018 target as it printed its half year funding report.

French markets regulator, Autorité des marchés financiers, has expressed concerns over the supervision of UK clearing houses after Brexit, suggesting that UK home country supervisors may not focus on the stability of the European Union.