Europe

The Bank of England moved closer to imposing a counter-cyclical capital buffer on UK banks last month, and will review its decision again before the end of the year.

World Bank on Wednesday sold the largest dollar benchmark from an SSA since July, as other issuers lined up deals in the currency.

The LSE announced on Tuesday that it had appointed Nikhil Rathi as its new chief executive officer.

The euro benchmark market is set to welcome a debut issuer this week, while a rare borrower in the currency was able to increase a syndication from its initial €500m target.

Stonegate Pub Co, the fourth largest in the UK’s managed pub sector, offered on Thursday an £80m tap of its debut fixed rate note, to fund the partial purchase of peer firm Tattershall Castle Group.

The beleaguered Austrian lender has announced the completion of its partial sale and split into KA New and KA Finanz. The asset pools of both are high quality but the covered bond ratings of KA New look more vulnerable than those of KA Finanz, analysts said.

The French government presented its 2016 budget on Wednesday, revealing its funding target for next year.

Royal Bank of Scotland has promoted two bankers to replace the head of its German business who is leaving.

There is vulnerability to climate change, and then there’s the Netherlands. Two thirds of the country is vulnerable to flooding; about 26% of it is actually below sea level; it is densely populated, and its biggest city, Amsterdam, is right in the firing line; and it is traversed by two of Europe’s great rivers, the Rhine and Meuse, which have been bursting their banks since before there were humans to notice. Short of the Maldives or a handful of Pacific Islands, it’s hard to think of a nation that has more reason to worry about rising sea levels.

Just south of the city of Växjö in southern Sweden is a new residential neighbourhood called Solallén. It’s a cluster of 21 black and yellow townhouses that, aesthetically pleasing as they are with their high ceilings and bike parking and gardens, would be unremarkable were it not for the fact that they constitute the first net zero energy residential neighbourhood in Sweden.

The increasing attractiveness of euros over dollars has led one public sector borrower to mandate for its first ever benchmark in the currency — and more debut issuers could follow.

It is said that if all forestry management was conducted like Sweden’s SCA, there would be no climate change problem. It is said, specifically, by SCA’s vice president for environmental affairs, Patrik Isaksson. “Yes,” he says cheerfully. “Let me explain that provocative statement.”