Europe

Westpac has mandated leads and opened books for a dollar benchmark covered bond, to be priced on Monday. And in euros, Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) has mandated leads for a €500m no-grow seven year benchmark, to be launched on Tuesday.

The Republic of Macedonia has mandated Citi, Deutsche Bank and Erste Group to arrange a euro denominated bond.

A poor third quarter for Commerzbank’s investment banking division and the announced retirement of its chief executive has done little to spoil the bank’s overall sense of momentum, as it posted better profits than had been widely expected and revealed it would pay its first dividend in eight years.

Greek banks will have to address a €14.4bn capital shortfall as part of ongoing plans to strengthen the viability of the country’s banking system, said the European Central Bank on Saturday.

Investec Bank signed its third and fourth syndicated loans of the year last Friday, and held a bank meeting this week for its fifth loan. The bank plans to stick to smaller, more regular loans in a volatile environment for emerging markets.

A steady start to the week in the European corporate bond primary market had clicked into gear by Thursday, as corporate issuers emerged at pace from earnings blackouts.

In this round-up, Macau’s RMB deposits, SDR review decision drawing close, BRICS NDB and AIIB ready operations, BoC reports on RMB business in first three quarters, and CFETS plans a joint venture with Deutsche Boerse.

China’s newly launched Cross-border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) is fundamental to the internationalisation of the renminbi as it centralises liquidity and will save costs, says Marcus Sehr, global head of institutional cash, global transaction banking at Deutsche Bank.

Another IPO fell by the wayside on Monday when Electricité de France and other shareholders decided not to proceed with floating EDF Luminus, which claims to be “the number one challenger in the Belgian energy market”.

Deezer, the French music streaming website, abandoned its IPO after the bookbuild closed on Tuesday without a covered message.

Italy based construction company Saipem has signed an agreement with seven banks in a €6.7bn refinancing which will secure the firm an investment grade rating.

The flying cars and self-drying suits that Marty McFly discovered on October 21, 2015 in Back to the Future may not exist, but self-recovering auto credit spreads have been in evidence over the past week – taking Europe’s big carmakers back to the levels they enjoyed in September before the Volkswagen emissions scandal.