Europe

Central and eastern European telecoms provider PPF Telecom has clinched the support of its noteholders for amendments to its bond documentation that will grant it greater flexibility to acquire assets.

Despite high inflation readings, the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee voted to keep up its purchases of UK government bonds at its meeting on Thursday. The MPC did offer some guidance on when the central bank will begin to reduce its stock of assets.

Depfa ACS has bought back its remaining Irish covered bonds. Ireland has now lost a total of three covered bond issuing banks leaving two behind — and they haven’t come to the public market for years.

The volume of retained covered bond issuance used for European Central Bank repo purposes exceeds distributed by many times in several countries. While this repo has provided a welcome boost to bank profits, it has come at the expense of long-term banking sector stability.

CDB Aviation, an Ireland-based subsidiary of China Development Bank Financial Leasing Co, has raised a $660m portfolio financing from banks.

Liberum has hired Nicholas How from Peel Hunt to oversee its support services and industrials investment banking team, which includes two other new faces.

MUFG is implementing a new hybrid work policy in EMEA that enshrines flexible working patterns that were introduced during the pandemic.

KfW cut a lone figure in the quiet summer bond market on Wednesday, launching a tap of a 2030 line and securing a well subscribed book.

Bank syndicates have been appointed for two of the equity capital markets deals expected in the autumn: the capital increase of e-commerce platform Cnova and the IPO of GreenYellow, the renewable energy business. Both are subsidiaries of Casino, the French supermarket chain.

NatWest Group said on Friday that the “reshaping” of its investment banking arm, NatWest Markets, would be largely complete by the end of the year, after it moved a further 500 staff out of NWM in the second quarter.

The Bank of England will hold a key monetary policy meeting on Thursday, where market participants hope to glean some insights on how the Bank will react to the UK’s surging rate of inflation.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s tier twos are see-sawing in the secondary market, as investors try and determine the fate of the bonds following merger interest from UniCredit.