Europe

Tidjane Thiam seems to have lost his hero status with investors. Credit Suisse’s share price leapt 7.7% on the day in March 2015 when he was named CEO, but most of the times Thiam has presented the bank’s results since taking the helm 16 months ago, the market has shuddered. On Thursday, its shares fell 6% by the afternoon, even though the bank beat expectations and pleased analysts.

Real money sellers were seen in recently issued Italian covered bonds on Thursday, along with some profit-taking at the long end of the French curve, which is expensive to OATs. But with German Pfandbriefe looking cheap relative to Laender, the bonds look well supported, bankers said.

SpareBank 1 SR-Bank raised €500m of 5.25 year senior funding on Thursday, though the order book may have been suppressed amid a series of central bank meetings and ahead of the US elections on November 8.

Russia’s Domodedovo Airport on Thursday morning set initial price thoughts for a new five year dollar bond.

The Polish government and a state owned development bank have both made a rare appearance in the MTN market.

Varta AG, the German micro-batteries manufacturer spun out of the historic Varta Group in 2002, has joined the small group of European companies braving the choppy waters of the IPO market.

UK challenger bank Virgin Money had a strong result on its return to the sterling market for more additional tier one paper on Thursday, bankers said, after the country’s High Court ruled Parliament must vote on exiting the European Union.

Société Générale beat expectations despite posting a 2.4% year on year decline in third quarter profit, as it offset weakness in its French retail banking unit by becoming the latest bank to benefit from increased revenues from trading fixed income, currencies and commodities.

Into a gloomy equity capital market where the expected line-up of deals has been decimated by investor risk-aversion, Sirius Minerals today launched a rare and challenging transaction, combining a capital increase and convertible bond that amount to a $940m project financing for a potash mine in the north of England.

French firm Teleperformance has completed syndication of its $1.825bn acquisition loan and may refinance part of the deal with private placements, following the example set by other French SME firms this year.

French trade fair organiser Comexposium on Wednesday joined the recent wave of refinancing offerings in the euro leveraged loan market with its own €394m offering.

Italy’s bottle top maker Guala Closures on Tuesday began roadshowing for a new deal to refinance all of its high yield bond debt as the market’s pipeline accelerates before the US elections.