Europe

Shanghai Pudong Development Bank is set to open its newly authorised UK branch for business next week, with initial plans for wholesale banking and vanilla securities trading.

Two weeks after rating agency S&P softened its stance on the early refinancing of hybrid instruments, Dutch energy distributor Alliander became the first issuer to take advantage when it sold a successful hybrid deal alongside a tender offer for a hybrid bond it issued just over four years ago.

Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen Girozentrale (Helaba) and Sparkasse Pforzheim Calw issued tightly priced Pfandbriefe with quite limited demand on Thursday.

The investment grade corporate bond market has started February with intent, with Thursday registering as the second busiest day of 2018 so far.

BPER Banca has become the first covered bond issuer to publish and upload loan data into the European Data Warehouse (ED). The move will boost investor appeal, help rating agencies meet European Central Bank requirements and could become important for programmes with extendable maturities.

Banco Santander brought out a 10 year tier two bond on Thursday on the back of announcing its full year results, at which it said it needed extra subordinated debt because of its acquisition of Banco Popular.

Republic of Romania offered investors a rare opportunity to buy sovereign debt from central and eastern Europe with a three digit spread on Thursday.

Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport (DME) has named leads for dollar roadshows, potentially adding to the $2bn of supply from Russian issuers so far this year.

France is hoping to add its name to a growing list of sovereigns in China’s Panda bond market, having discussed the possibility with at least two of the country’s biggest state-owned banks.

Chinese regulators have given Standard Chartered the nod to become a joint lead underwriter on corporate Panda bonds, allowing it to take a senior position on deals that it was previously forced to play a junior role on. StanChart is only the second foreign bank to win the approval.

ANZ New Zealand issued debt in the middle part of the maturity curve this week, as rising rates in the Swiss franc market made deals with this sort of tenor more attractive to issuers.

Capita, the UK outsourcing services firm which runs London's congestion charge system, has laid out an ambitious turnaround plan including a £700m rights issue, but the stock plummeted as its profits projections fell short of expectations.