Europe

Albaraka Turk scored a solid first last week when it issued Turkey’s first Basel III compliant additional tier one bond, but while this marks progress, it will take one of the country’s larger banks to establish a true benchmark.

Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten will reopen the dollar market for SSAs after a US public holiday on Monday — but is very much keeping to a trend set in the currency last week.

SGG Group, the corporate and investor services firm based in Luxembourg and owned by Astorg, will fund its acquisition of UK peer First Names in the leveraged loan market, which has already enjoyed its busiest January ever in EMEA.

We are excited to announce that the GlobalCapital Bond Awards Poll is now open.

Oekom Research, the sustainability ratings agency, has given only 7% of the asset managers and securities brokerages it assessed a prime rating, in an unpublished report seen by GlobalCapital.

Temenos, the Swiss banking software company, is in advanced discussions about an all cash offer for Fidessa, the UK trading technology firm, for around £1.4bn, which is likely to involve some debt issuance.

The Schuldschein market's reputation as a gentlemanly club is at risk of diverging from reality. Competition is becoming fiercer and arrangers are employing every weapon in their armouries to win mandates. This is how capital markets behave — but the Schuldschein market should not follow.

BPCE chose to differentiate itself from other French issuers on Tuesday by mandating joint leads for the first French seven year of 2018.

Commerzbank’s senior deal on Tuesday was a test of demand for German long-dated senior bonds in the face of market volatility, rate rise expectations and a change to rules over European Central Bank's collateral eligibility.

With one of the most thinly oversubscribed Norwegian covered bonds in years, Sparebanken Vest Boligreditt (SpaVest) was barely able to tighten pricing this week. It followed Berlin Hyp, which was unable to tighten pricing at all.

French issuers ALD and Mercialys continued the triple-B theme of the week in the investment grade corporate bond market when the pair announced new deals on Tuesday. These followed three BBB+ rated credits on Monday.

The Financial Conduct Authority on Tuesday called upon technology experts from across the finance industry to give feedback on a new automated way to provide the FCA with regulatory reports.