Europe

Investors have agreed to a number of changes to Nationwide Building Society’s covered bond programme. The publication of voting results in full is in line with the European Central Bank’s recommendation — but something that is still rarely seen in the market.

Swedish firm AR Packaging this week began marketing €240m of loans to fund its acquisition by CVC Partners from Ahlstrom Capital and Accent Equity.

Ukrainian energy company DTEK is looking to dispose of several assets which will enable it to cut its debt burden by 17%. It has given investors until June 29 to agree to the sale.

The European Central Bank has said it will allow Greek banks to participate in its regular refinancing operations, potentially slashing their funding costs.

Poland is looking to join the club of Panda bond issuers, having signed up Bank of China to lead its transaction. But the sovereign plans to swap the renminbi proceeds back into euros as it has little need for the Chinese currency.

Markets watchers in Asia said they were optimistic, as GlobalCapital Asia went to press on Thursday, that next week would be a return to business as usual, given their widespread expectations that the UK would choose to remain in the European Union. But some warned that, irrespective of the outcome, currency risks could spill over to other asset classes, adversely affecting bonds and equities.

A $12.7bn Asia-focused loan for China National Chemical Corp’s acquisition of Swiss firm Syngenta is expected to enter the second phase of syndication as early as next week.

The Mutual Recognition of Funds (MRF) scheme has had a relatively slow start, but Chinese regulators are said to be looking at Luxembourg to expand the scope of the progamme, GlobalRMB has learned. But difficulties abound in bringing the project to reality.

SSAB, the Swedish steel company, announced on Wednesday morning that its Skr5bn (€536m) seven-for-eight rights issue, led by Crédit Agricole, Handelsbanken, Nordea and Swedbank, had been oversubscribed by 38%.

Despite Italian bank stocks being badly out of favour, Banco Popolare has achieved 99.4% subscription for its €996m rights issue, leaving only a tiny rump to be placed in the coming days. But Veneto Banca's IPO is likely to fail, leaving the bank in the arms of Fondo Atlante.

Agence France Locale will diversify its funding sources before the end of the year by signing a Euro-commercial paper programme and printing long dated, privately placed EMTNs.

With European corporate bond issuance unsurprisingly non-existent on Wednesday, spreads have held steady in secondary markets ahead of the UK’s referendum vote on its EU membership.