Europe

Two European government bond traders who resigned earlier this year from Barclays are heading to hedge funds.

Russian fertiliser producer PhosAgro placed the first Russian corporate bond of the year on Wednesday, securing a coupon of below 4%.

Barclays rolled out sweeping cuts to its investment bank on Wednesday, with around 100 jobs gone across the business, including several managing directors in the EMEA primary bonds business.

Alfa-Bank will be the first Russian privately owned bank to test demand for additional tier one (AT1) securities since the write-down of capital bonds from Otkritie and Promsvyazbank.

Polyus Gold has announced plans to issue a Eurobond, three days after terminating an agreement to sell a stake to Chinese investment company Fosun International.

Dermapharm Holding, the German pharmaceuticals company, has begun investor education for the first IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange this year.

There have been high levels of issuance in the long end of the Aussie dollar curve this week, with a trade from KfW on Wednesday taking advantage of an increase in demand.

Dollar SSA deals are showing little signs of a hangover from a public holiday in the US on Monday, with all three of Wednesday’s trades well over subscribed and pricing inside guidance.

Big central bank and bank treasury demand, alongside good liquidity in the sterling/dollar cross currency basis swap and issuers’ willingness to print large deals, are driving the strongest ever start for the sterling SSA market — and a record trade for World Bank.

The Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) pulled off a strong first deal of the year, raising €1bn with what bankers said on the deal was only a 1bp new issue concession. More issuers are already lining up for euro deals.

Barclays’s former New York head of FX trading, Robert Bogucki, was charged this week with allegedly “front-running” a £6bn options trade to be executed by technology company Hewlett-Packard in 2011.

Dwr Cymru Welsh Water reopened the investment grade sterling corporate bond market on Wednesday with a £300m bond that came bang in the middle of the maturity range marketed during the issuer's roadshow.