Europe

The equity capital market has kicked back into life this week with a number of high profile deals to test investor appetite. But with investors challenging IPO valuations and volatility causing a scare, lead managers might have to start selling deals on their fundamentals rather than relying on bullish market sentiment to do the job.

Georgia Capital (formerly BGEO Investments), the Georgian holding company representing the investment business of BGEO Group, is embarking on a roadshow for a five year dollar bond.

A Turkish military strike in Syria on Tuesday hit investor appetite for Akbank’s subordinated tier two offering, with the raid causing several accounts not to come into the book at all, according to a lead manager.

The Republic of Belarus has released initial price thoughts for a $600m 12 year bond after the country’s last deal, printed in June 2017, climbed 11 points since pricing.

Gazprom is looking to enter the Swiss franc market for the fifth time, mandating four banks to arrange meetings for a benchmark bond. After Moody’s upgraded the Russian company to investment grade, the arrangers are particularly confident of Swiss interest.

The equity blocks market in EMEA reopened after Presidents Day on Tuesday night with trades in WPP, the UK advertising agency, and Banca Farmafactoring.

Disallowing the use of senior bail-in debt as collateral at the ECB has alarmed some parts of the market — but discouraging banks from buying other banks' debt should be applauded.

PRS Reit, a UK real estate investment trust that builds and owns private rented homes in the UK, has completed a £250m capital raising to invest in UK real estate.

As Europe’s leveraged finance markets return to growth, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy has added Apostolos Gkoutzinis and Rebecca Marques as partners to its leveraged finance and capital markets team.

The Republic of Slovenia is once again in the market with a liability management exercise that will enable it to tidy its debt structure by buying back up to $650m of its outstanding dollar bonds, as it continues its bid to consolidate its outstanding dollar debt into one bond maturing 2024.

Spain’s first trip to the long end of the curve in almost two years met with an overwhelming response, as the sovereign received one of the largest books ever for a 30 year bond.

Cineworld, the UK cinema operator, has finished its £1.7bn rights issue to finance its reverse takeover of Regal Entertainment in the US, winning a high take-up from its shareholders.