Europe

The pattern of equity-linked issues coming in pairs continued on Wednesday, when Qiagen and Capital Stage successfully sold bonds. Both transactions were unusual, though in contrasting ways.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) on Wednesday announced a spate of changes to its senior management, all due to be enacted in October, including the replacement of veteran president of ICE Futures Europe David Peniket with Stuart Williams.

The French government came back to the equity block trade market on Tuesday night to sell another 4.5% chunk of its stake in Engie, the power and gas company, for €1.53bn, as part of a new €10bn asset sale programme announced in July.

The Moscow Exchange (MOEX) this week began trading for dollar-rouble and euro-rouble fixing instruments, one day traded products that settle into official MOEX FX fixing rates.

NRW.Bank launched its fifth green bond on Wednesday, sneaking in just ahead of Thursday’s European Central Bank meeting.

Nordea announced on Wednesday it would move its administrative headquarters from Sweden to Finland, allowing it to submit to supervision by Europe’s Single Supervisory Mechanism.

United Biscuits’ £725m ($948.23m) loan is being split into two term loans and a revolving credit facility with pricing linked to the company’s leverage, according to a banker on the deal.

Clarion Events is set to launch the loan funding for its acquisition by private equity firm Blackstone next week or soon after. The buyer also has funding for a deal to buy Paysafe in the pipeline.

Inter-American Development Bank will on Thursday attempt a five year dollar benchmark, copying a Wednesday deal from Asian Development Bank that bankers on the trade said was the best dollar deal since the summer. Agence Française de Développement is also out with a dollar benchmark — its first since a pulled trade in February.

Bouyed by the success of the four deals that priced on Tuesday, three issuers launched deals in the corporate bond market on Wednesday. While deal sizes remain at the smaller end of what is considered a benchmark, longer tenors from triple-B rated corporates are offering investors more yield.

On Wednesday, Spanish electricity utility Iberdrola became the third corporate issuer in a week to print a green bond in euros. The €750m 10 year deal took the total corporate green bonds issued since the summer break to €1.95bn.

Public sector borrowers are finding healthy seams of sterling funding in various tenors, as Council of Europe Development Bank lined up to follow a Wednesday trade by KfW — and there are rumours that more supranationals could consider deals in the currency. Attractive arbitrage levels and large redemptions are helping drive supply and demand respectively, said bankers.