Europe

British American Tobacco set fire to any notion that markets close in August this week with a $20.8bn bond bonanza. It brought a $17.25bn eight tranche deal on Tuesday — the second largest bond transaction of the year in the US — and followed that with a €3.6bn-equivalent four tranche dual currency deal in Europe on Wednesday. Nigel Owen reports.

Red Football, an investment vehicle for the billionaire Glazer family, came to market on Wednesday evening to launch the sale of a 2% stake in Manchester United, the New York-listed English football club that they have owned since 2005.

The public sector dollar market looks set to enjoy healthy flows for the rest of the summer, with some small deals lined up and geopolitical tensions failing to cause any large disturbances to rates.

Matthew Duff has left Lloyds to join the FIG syndicate team at BNP Paribas, replacing Jennie White.

National Bank of Greece (NBG) and another Greek issuer have confirmed they are looking at issuing the first Greek covered bonds since the sovereign debt crisis, reports Bill Thornhill.

Russian fertiliser company EuroChem is due to sign a loan in three weeks’ time to refinance $325m of a $500m bond it launched in June as well as previous loan facilities.

Rating: —/A-/A (UBS Group Funding Switzerland)

Aegon, the insurance firm, said on Thursday that it would raise senior debt in the third quarter of 2017 to pre-fund a €1bn capital injection into its Dutch unit.

Two further Schuldschein deals at least doubled in size this week after Lonza's bumper earlier deal, as the market eclipsed its issuance level for the whole of 2016.

A former FIG syndicate director at Crédit Agricole is understood to have joined Deutsche Bank, following a string of FIG syndicate moves in previous months.

HSBC has restructured its global banking Middle East, North Africa and Turkey arm under Matthew Wallace, head of global banking MENAT, according to an internal memo seen by GlobalCapital.

Independent Vetcare, a veterinary group based in the UK, is back in the market with an add-on to the sterling loans that funded its leveraged buyout in April.