Europe

Borrowers in the public sector debt market are still enjoying the afterglow of Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French election but, with Ascension Day sidelining much of Europe and a UK bank holiday Monday, the pace is expected to slacken.

Deutsche Bank has named a new head of UK equity capital markets.

Corporate borrowers hit the bond market early this week before Thursday’s Ascension Day holiday on the continent, and bankers expect issuance to drop off sharply in the coming days.

The momentum in the equity block trade market is evident this week, as several large trades have been priced at extremely tight discounts. The drought of equity-linked deals also ended this week, with a zero coupon note issued by a Danish hearing equipment maker.

Vakifbank took advantage of seemingly insatiable demand for Turkish bank paper to raise $500m of five year senior funding on Tuesday.

Public holidays will cut short the issuance window at the end of May, but banks have enjoyed a busy month and a flurry of deals have arrived in the market this week.

NEX Optimisation on Tuesday announced a restructuring of its business in preparation for its new NEX Infinity platform, which uses distributed ledger technology and brings together transaction optimisation services under one roof.

Shares in Medicover, the Swedish diagnostic services provider, closed 17% higher on their trading debut on Tuesday after the company finished its Skr2bn (€207m) IPO on Nasdaq Stockholm, having priced the deal at the mid-point of its range.

Euronext has announced that it will acquire FastMatch, the electronic communication network (ECN) used in the spot foreign exchange market.

The Kingdom of Belgium hit the long end in euros on Tuesday, taking advantage of a healthy market to raise €3bn with a 20 year bond. Meanwhile, Nederlandse Waterschapsbank (NWB) announced a tap of a 2041 line.

Drug company Allergan made its debut in the euro bond market on Tuesday, bringing a multi-tranche trade that has tightened during execution despite bankers off the deal saying initial price thoughts already looked expensive.

On Monday night, Kion Group, the German forklift truck maker, completed a €602m capital increase to refinance its acquisition of Dematic, a specialist automation company, through an accelerated bookbuild led by Goldman Sachs.