Europe

The euro high yield market closed the week before the Easter break in strong form, with bonds from Burger King France and Colfax, the US gas company.

There’s little chance of a harmonised approach to the burgeoning asset class of ‘senior non-preferred’ by the end of the year — and more likely that member states to tweak the rules — as talks in the European Parliament and between member states stalled.

Michel Péretié, the ex-chief executive of Société Générale CIB, has backed the creation of a new SME bank focused on the Benelux region and Germany.

French elections, blackout periods and the Easter holidays are expected to make FIG markets trickier to navigate but an opportunistic trade or two cannot be ruled out with a number of borrowers working on mandates.

French dough maker Cérélia has launched a €345m loan package for its acquisition of Canadian cookie and muffin maker English Bay Batter, joining UK nurseries firm Busy Bees in signing a roll-up acquisition.

A fresh IPO launch broke the quiet in the pre-Easter European equity capital market this week: and a very unusual one — the first Romanian flotation of the year. Digi Communications, a leading telecoms and media group, wants to float 25% of its equity in Bucharest.

The UK's National Health Service, frustrated by a lack of funding and a mounting backlog of maintenance, is seeking a capital injection from wherever it can find it. The government must swallow its balance sheet concerns and provide one, rather than allowing the private sector to step in.

Private equity firm Black Toro Capital has invested €40m to finance an acquisition by a private company that will create Spain’s largest ice cream maker.

The Bank of England has been dragged back into the mire of Libor-rigging investigations, after the BBC found tapes of Barclays traders referring to "pressure from the UK government and Bank of England" to keep their submissions low. The witch-hunt is already well under way but, if the Bank exerted pressure, it was the right thing to do.

Wobbles in eurozone government bond secondaries this week failed to deter a strong showing from a pair of public sector issuers in primary on Tuesday. Unédic found strong demand and tightened from guidance on its longest dated benchmark ever, while Austria broke a series of records with a 10 year euro benchmark.

The European Energy Exchange (EEX) is to launch financially settled power futures for Germany ahead of any possible split of the present German-Austrian power price zone.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has clarified margin rules under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) in a new document, outlining the situations in which central counterparties (CCPs) may allow up to 100% collateral reductions for derivatives contracts.