Europe

Investors are receiving a decent concession to buy new paper in the FIG market, and this has encouraged them to jump out of outstanding bonds, thus widening the curve further for new issuers. And covered bonds buyers are also gaining the upper hand, as the European Central bank pulls out.

Financial firms are turning to artificial intelligence to catch perpetrators of market abuse and other breaches of financial rules.

Glencore, the Swiss commodities trading and mining company, has breathed some life into Europe's equity-linked market with a $500m equity-neutral convertible bond due in 2025.

Equity markets took a hit this week in the wake of revelations that big data political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, managed to obtain data from millions of Facebook profiles, sparking concerns about possible government-led crackdowns on data and tech companies around the world.

The Nordic Investment Bank has announced that it will become the second borrower of the week to access the two year dollar market. The first, Kommunalbanken, scooped up $1.25bn on Tuesday.

Virgin Media raised £300m from a receivables financing note this week, a deal that despite being more complex than normal high yield bonds, was liked by fund managers.

The strong performance of Siemens Healthineers in the aftermarket has boosted the European IPO market and a raft of new listings are already covered ahead of their conclusions this week.

Lloyds Bank issued its third covered bond of the year on Tuesday and its second in sterling, paying a fraction of the premium seen in the senior unsecured market, despite the large deal size.

French institutional investors, who dominate the Euro private placement market, are expecting a rise in issuance soon after the European Central Bank withdraws from buying corporate bonds. They expect their pitch to issuers will be that much sweeter as yields in the bond and Schuldschein markets rise.

UK property company Hammerson has signed a new £1.5bn three year revolving credit facility, bringing in a dozen banks for a financing aimed at slashing the funding costs of its acquisition target, Intu.

The sole investment grade corporate new issue on Tuesday was a sub-benchmark seven year deal as weak secondary markets finally pulled the handbrake on new issuance. Some recent deals had struggled to tighten from initial price thoughts and issuers paused to take stock.

Covered bond investors have “had enough of tight spreads" said a lead manager. as demonstrated on Tuesday by the contrasting fortunes of deals from Lansforsakringar Hypotek AB (LF Hyp) and Aareal Bank. At the same time, the European Central Bank continued to scale back its order.