Europe

Alvarez & Marsal, the restructuring firm that handled Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy, is set to deliver early next week a scheme for Abengoa to avoid bankruptcy. Bankers say the high yield market should cope, either way.

Portugal is limbering up for its first benchmark of the year in a week heavy with eurozone periphery sovereign issuance, including an auction where Italy’s three year yield nearly dipped below zero.

Banque Fédérative du Crédit Mutuel has come to market with 2016's largest medium term note (MTN) so far.

Daimler Canada Finance, a subsidiary of Daimler, made a rare outing in Norwegian kroner on Wednesday, printing a five year bond.

Raiffeisen-Landesbank Steiermark and Bayerische Landesbank issued Austrian and German Pfandbrief, respectively, on Wednesday. The fact that the Austrian deal was only just oversubscribed and the German deal was placed only with domestic investors reflected the pernicious influence of the covered bond purchase programme (CBPP3).

Swedish telecommunications company Tele2 has retained all of the original lenders as it refinances a €800m revolving credit facility.

Nationwide Building Society has continued its funding surge into 2016, offering sterling investors a rare chance to pick up long dated senior unsecured paper from a UK lender.

In a starved Russian loan market peppered with asset backed loans, three Chinese banks have lent a highly prized unsecured credit facility of Rmb4.8bn ($730m) to Russian mining company Norilsk Nickel. It is the latest sign of the increasing importance of Chinese money in a Russian economy increasingly squeezed by international sanctions and falling oil prices. Elly Whittaker reports.

The Bank of England is proposing to allow banks to take back the bonuses they pay to buy financiers out of their contracts with competitor firms.

Hungary will not issue a dim sum bond until a period of sustained stability is seen in the Chinese markets, said bankers on Wednesday.

ISDA’s EMEA Determinations Committee has referred Novo Banco credit default swaps to an external review, after failing to achieve a “supermajority” with its binding vote on whether the Portuguese bank has triggered a government intervention credit event.

ISDA has released a list of participating bidders for the credit event auction on Thursday to settle Abengoa 2014 credit default swaps.