Europe

A jumbo bond intended to refinance the debt of merged companies Quintiles and IMS on Wednesday added to a deluge of high yield issuance, with the market seeing €4bn of new bonds by Thursday.

Pure Gym, the UK’s largest gym operator, is proceeding with its £190m IPO on the London Stock Exchange to finance its expansion plans and substantially reduce debt.

The European high yield market looks bound to end the third quarter of this year with a flourish as the volume of September primary sales approaches the €10bn mark, some €2bn more than for June and July combined.

Pure Gym looked to demonstrate on Wednesday a primary market in excellent health as it announced one of two IPOs on behalf of private equity sellers amid a bulging pipeline of issuance.

A cautious tone beset the FIG market this week, as borrowers took their feet of the pedals ahead of the US Federal Open Market Committee’s policy meeting next week.

Italian oil and gas company Eni jostled with four other issuers on one of the European corporate bond market's busiest days of the year as it issued a dual tranche offering on Tuesday.

Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten printed $1.5bn of two year paper on Tuesday in a move which finishes off its benchmark activity for the year.

Shares in Air Liquide, the French supplier of industrial and healthcare gases, closed 4.8% higher on Tuesday after it announced the full terms for its €3.3bn rights issue, to refinance a loan used to buy Airgas, a US competitor, in May.

Kommunalbanken (KBN) on Tuesday took advantage of Lael Brainard's, a US Federal Reserve governor, dovish comments on US rates from the day before to eliminate any premium paid on its new five year dollar benchmark.

The US Commodity Trading Futures Commission's split over whether to accept Japan's uncleared margin rules as equivalent to the US was not an ideal outcome. But the decision, however contentious, is a pragmatic step which will motivate further convergence between regulatory regimes.

National Grid Gas printed a £3bn ($3.97bn) jumbo transaction that exceeded even its own expectations this week as sterling investors demonstrated a phenomenal capacity to absorb corporate paper.

HSH Finanzfonds printed its first ever public bond on Tuesday, attracting strong enough demand for two rounds of price tightening.