Europe

How the Schuldschein market reacts when a borrower has payment difficulties has been a perennial question since the instrument reached a global audience. The revelations about possible false accounting at Steinhoff are likely to prove one of the market's biggest tests yet.

Estonia plans to become the first sovereign to dip its toes into the still murky waters of cryptocurrencies.

Enel, the Italian electricity and gas company, has signed a €10bn syndicated loan to refinance a facility from 2015, with pricing 27.5bp tighter.

Danish lenders including Nykredit are set to issue a larger volume of covered bonds than normal this December.

Ak Finansal Kiralama (Aklease), Akbank’s leasing subsidiary, has signed a $110m syndicated loan to fund renewable energy projects.

Lowell, the UK-German debt collector, will seek funding for its northern European expansion in the high yield bond market, as it buys Intrum’s branches in the Scandinavia region, Finland and Estonia.

London Stock Exchange Group chairman Donald Brydon won a confidence vote at an extraordinary shareholder meeting on Tuesday, after an activist investor called for his sacking in November.

The rump auction following the rights issue of Banca Carige, the Genoese bank, was closed early after two days on Monday, but participants in the deal have to wait till Thursday to find out how many of the buyers will subscribe for the up to €167m of shares.

Steinhoff International’s shares jolted downwards again today as it met its banks in London, seeking their support to get through the difficulties caused by apparent false accounting.

Germany has announced its funding target for 2018, reducing its long term fixed-income target by €5bn from its 2017 number but aiming for a total, including short term instruments, of €183bn — up from €172bn in 2017.

Public sector debt bankers and fellow debt management office heads have lined up to praise the impact on the Italian and wider European sovereign debt markets of Italy funding head Maria Cannata, who is retiring after nearly three decades at the country’s Treasury. While universally agreeing that she would be greatly missed both professionally and personally — including her sense of humour — there was also strong confidence that the team she has put in place will be able to meet all Italy’s future challenges.

As the final deals of 2017 are closed in the Schuldschein market, bankers are already busy working on an expected January rush.