Europe

The year’s initial rush of FIG issuance subsided this week, but market participants are already positioning themselves for heavy supply of bail-inable senior bonds in later busy issuance windows.

Kernel Holding has hired two international banks to work on a bond offering, the first corporate new issue from Ukraine since 2013.

Italy on Wednesday produced an almost carbon copy trade of Belgium’s 10 year euro benchmark from earlier this week, printing €6bn as its curve tightened in the background — although with a longer dated bond.

Following the departure of Andy Jameson, MUFG has appointed Phil Roberts as head of its EMEA investment banking division.

One of the busiest days ever in the public sector dollar market ended with five issuers sitting on deals printed at the top end of their size targets and with pricing tightened from initial thoughts. Another borrower is already out for Thursday business and bankers predict that conditions are so “incredible” that deal flow will stay healthy into next week — no matter what policy statements incoming US president Donald Trump makes at his inauguration on Friday.

Swedish Match is selling a 9% stake in Scandinavian Tobacco Group, the Copenhagen-listed cigar and pipe tobacco producer, this evening (Wednesday) though an accelerated bookbuild led by Deutsche Bank and Nordea.

Bolloré, the French investment company, gave investment grade euro corporate bond investors their first unrated deal of the year on Wednesday, and managed to tighten its pricing by 25bp.

The Moscow Exchange (MOEX) is to introduce a weekly expiry of options on the Russian Trading System (RTS) stock index.

JP Morgan Asset Management on Wednesday launched its Europe High Yield Short Duration Bond Fund for investors seeking protection against future interest rate hikes.

Xella, the German building materials maker, held a bank meeting on Thursday morning in London for the first large buyout of the year so far, as it markets €1.3bn of loans backing its buyout by US private equity house Lone Star.

UK cable and mobile operator Virgin Media on Wednesday plugged its refinancing bond offering into the sterling market on Wednesday, raising total potential sterling high yield bond sales to near £1.7bn so far this year.

The Republic of Turkey has surprised market participants by opening books on a 10 year dollar benchmark — but the 40bp-45bp new issue premium at the starting point hints at the elevated price investors will be demanding for Turkish risk.