Europe

Tullett Prebon has obtained approval from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority for its proposed acquisition of rival interdealer broker ICAP’s global hybrid voice broking and information businesses.

The bounce in international equities since the election of Donald Trump as US president was widely expected by market participants to lead to a round of block trades as sellers looked to take advantage of the favourable conditions.

Groupe SEB, the French maker of household appliances, issued its first convertible bond on Tuesday, raising €150m at a negative yield, as part of the financing for an acquisition.

Mylan, the US pharmaceutical company, rode its industry’s wave of post-Donald Trump euphoria on Tuesday as it revived a multi-tranche euro bond issue that it had delayed amid political noise in September.

Swedish speciality chemicals group Perstorp priced €1bn-equivalent of high yield bonds on Tuesday, grabbing the attention of investors with triple-C paper against an uncertain backdrop.

Fixed income specialist SC Lowy, the investment bank based in Hong Kong, has appointed Peter Chung as a senior trader in Europe.

The leveraged finance market has been met this week by raft of mergers and acquisitions, with four deals announced and several major leveraged buyouts poised for action.

As expected, the loans for the leveraged buyout of Polish auction website Allegro are tightly priced, with tenors of six and seven years for less than 400bp.

Public sector borrower supply is beginning to trickle through after a volatile Monday, but bankers are warning that market conditions are far from perfect — and some issuers are still unwilling to take a chance on a deal.

Kommuninvest’s senior investor relations manager is expanding his role and will now head the Swedish agency’s sustainability programme.

Oesterreichische Kontrollbank mandated Danske Bank to raise a minimum of Nkr500m ($59.2m) for a four year Nokkie note on Tuesday.

Gazprom has mandated Deutsche Bank, Gazprombank, UBS and VTB Capital to act as joint lead managers for a Swiss franc bond set to come to market later this month.