Europe

Direct Line came to the market with a restricted tier one (RT1) bond on Friday, the first benchmark trade in the asset class in a core currency.

The sterling bond market was stretched in new directions on Friday when the University of Oxford issued its first bond. It chose a 100 year maturity, much longer than the longest Gilt, and at Aaa is rated higher than the UK government.

France announced this morning it would tap its green bond, the famous green OAT or GrOAT, on December 7. The deal will come just before President Emmanuel Macron holds a climate summit in Paris.

The Philippines postpones its Panda bond deal as it awaits approval from China’s central bank, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) opens its first office in Singapore, and the renminbi falls to seventh place in the league table of the world’s most used payments currency in October.

Credit Suisse has declared the cost-cutting exercise in its global markets division over as it looks to regain market share in some product areas following its restructuring.

Rating: Aa1/AA-/AAA

Greece was able to exchange more than €25bn of old bonds for new assets in an exercise designed to normalise the borrower’s curve. The offer ended on Tuesday, in the midst of discussions about the conditions that will be attached to Greece’s next tranche of emergency loans. The fresh curve should allow the borrower to return to capital markets twice in 2018.

UBS wrapped up its total funding for 2017 with a $4.3bn trade that cemented a record year for dollar FIG supply.

BNP Paribas will join Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Citigroup, and Société Générale as a systematic internaliser when MiFID II regulations come into effect in January.

An announcement on Tuesday morning that Oxford University would be meeting UK investors ahead of an ultra-long-dated transaction caused a stir across the corporate bond market this week.

A long-standing dispute about how the Bank of Portugal handled the senior bonds of Novo Banco in 2015 reared its head again this week, as a group of influential asset managers refused to take part in a subordinated bond issue from Banco Comercial Português (BCP). But the boycott is yet to damage Portuguese financial institutions, with banks gradually restoring their access to the capital markets, writes Tyler Davies.

Italian state-owned railway operator Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane sold its first green bond on Thursday.