Europe

Fundraising for private debt in Europe has slowed, but a new pan-European private debt fund from US house Muzinich targeting mid-market businesses, had raised €460m at its third close this week. The final close is expected later this year.

The initial public offering for Axa’s US business raised less than targeted. This prompted market debate about whether the French insurer is on track in raising cash for its acquisition of XL Group and whether it would need to raise more debt, something denied by the insurer.

Next week will be the first and only full business week of the month. With spreads having stabilised, a broad range of issuers are expected to take advantage of the funding window, not least because of some concerns that credit conditions could deteriorate later in the year.

Lenders to Vakifbank’s Turkish Islamic finance subsidiary got a 90bp reward for financing the smaller specialist financial institution over its parent company, according to bankers close to the transaction.

German chemicals supplier Lanxess found a surprising lack of demand for its first bond issue since September 2016, which sent bankers scrambling to re-examine their plans for next week's burgeoning corporate pipeline. Lanxess's struggle comes as new issue premiums and how far deals tighten through the bookbuild are being increasingly scrutinised as the market begins to imagine life in the European corporate bond market without the safety net of quantitative easing. Nigel Owen reports.

A long-awaited civil settlement with the US Department of Justice this week could prove to be a boon for Royal Bank of Scotland, which has had the risk of heavy fines looming over it for some time.

Société Générale has hired a veteran derivatives trader as its head of equities and equity derivatives.

Law firm Ropes & Gray has hired former Goldman Sachs managing director Carol Van der Vorst as a partner in its leveraged finance team in Europe.

Kartesia, the European direct lender based in London, has provided unitranche funding to Latvian glass coatings company GroGlass. As larger direct lenders are not active in the region, Kartesia and other smaller institutions see an opportunity in their absence.

Vodafone, the UK-based telecoms group, is planning a raft of capital market activity to finance its €18.4bn acquisition of Liberty Global’s cable assets in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania, including a second try of the ground-breaking mandatorily convertible bonds it issued in 2016.

Barclays has continued to beef up its corporate broking presence, a central plank of its UK growth strategy, by recruiting Deutsche Bank’s former head of corporate broking.

On Wednesday, German chemicals supplier Lanxess found a surprising lack of demand for its first corporate bond issue since September 2016. Onlookers suggested this is was not a good sign with a heavy pipeline building for future weeks.