Europe

Issuer Rating: Aaa/AAA

The IPO of Metrovacesa, the Spanish property developer, finished oversubscribed on Friday after the deal was repriced downwards after reaching the end of its scheduled bookbuild period without any covered message having been given.

The two 100 year corporate bonds previously sold in the sterling market had received excellent responses and, when London-based charity the Wellcome Trust became the latest member of the century club this week, it proved that investors' demand for ultra long bonds is far from satisfied.

The investment grade corporate bond market started February with the second busiest day of 2018 so far, picking up after a relatively quiet January. Acea, Ford and Prosegur Cia de Seguridad, sold five tranches between them, including two floating rate notes (FRNs), on the first day of the new month.

Two Russian issuers forged ahead with plans to issue Eurobonds this week, despite increasing noise around Russian sanctions that threaten to push spreads wider.

The chief strategy officer of Eurex Clearing, Matthias Graulich, has dismissed claims that euro interest rate swap clearing costs would increase substantially if moved to the EU 27 from London, noting that liquidity indicators for the product are already improving at Eurex.

The Republic of Poland exceeded its own and its leads’ hopes when it issued its second green bond this week. Piotr Nowak, undersecretary of state at Poland's finance ministry, told GlobalCapital that with 41% of green accounts participating, the sovereign had succeeded in diversifying its investor base.

The Wellcome Trust charity is a fine institution. The medical research it has funded will benefit the world for many years. This week it helped fund that work by selling a £750m 100 year bond. The investors who bought it probably have a warm glow inside knowing they have helped the cause. But is it responsible to buy bonds that will redeem in 2118?

UK engineering group GKN has once again come down hard on a hostile takeover bid from industrial turnround specialist Melrose, prompting some loans bankers to lose confidence that the £7.4bn-plus deal is viable.

Audley Group, the UK builder of luxury retirement villages, has signed a £125m revolving credit line as it follows up a 2017 equity raising as part of an “aggressive growth strategy”.

The big fall in the share price of UK outsourcer Capita on Wednesday led to fears of another large corporate collapse in the sector following Carillion's demise last month. But market sources saw the rights issue and turnaround plans, which caused the dip, as a way to avoid disaster as peer Serco once did with similar tactics.

The round of redundancies at Barclays Investment Bank has hit more senior figures, including the head of EMEA leveraged finance, a vice-chairman in ECM, the COO of EMEA banking, as well as other managing directors across the origination businesses.