Europe

Belfius Bank is looking to amend the terms and conditions of one of its tier twos so that it can remain eligible for the minimum requirements for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL). The bond was issued with risk factor language under English law but will now need to be updated to reflect the UK’s departure from the EU.

North Macedonia launched a new bond in euros on Wednesday, following deals last week from fellow central and eastern European sovereigns issuers, Serbia and Croatia.

EDP Renováveis, the Portuguese renewable energy company, priced a €1.5bn capital increase on Tuesday night. The trade will help the company fund expansion and attracted strong demand, but it had to offer a big discount as fears over rising bond yields continued to cast a shadow over the sector.

Market participants will be reassessing the role of deposit guarantee schemes in European Union bank bailouts after this week’s ruling by the European Court of Justice that the 2014 rescue of Banca Tercas should have been upheld as lawful.

Austrian paper and packaging company Mayr-Melnhof Karton has sold €1bn of long-dated Schuldscheine, in the first transaction of that size this year. The deal, which will fund acquisitions in Finland and Poland, showcases the high amounts and attractive structures companies can achieve due to a supply and demand imbalance in the German private placement market.

Belgian football club Club Brugge is teeing up an IPO on Euronext Brussels that will see the side join the small ranks of listed European football clubs.

Italy picked the banks to lead its debut green bond on Tuesday after unveiling its sovereign green framework to investors last week.

UK chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak is preparing to unveil his latest budget on Wednesday. Leaks point to a package of tax hikes and spending cuts. But a repeat of the discredited model that the Conservative Party, of which he is a member, embraced to tackle the 2008-2009 financial crisis would miss a huge opportunity to finance growth just when borrowing costs are as low as they will ever be. Austerity will prove a false economy that drives investment elsewhere.

Concerns that London is losing ground to other financial centres within Europe, such as Amsterdam, which has surpassed London as Europe’s largest centre for equities trading, are overblown. The UK capital remains an attractive listing venue for high-growth firms and could become more so after a Treasury review of London’s listing regime is published this week. But the City should not abandon the core principles on which its reputation has been built just to claw back a short-term loss of business.

KfW rebooted the short end of the euro public sector bond market on Tuesday with a well subscribed trade which offered a modest new issue premium. The deal shared the euro SSA market with the State of Baden-Württemberg’s debut green bond.

Hypo Tirol Bank has mandated leads to roadshow its first social covered bond and SR Boligkreditt has mandated leads for a vanilla deal. Both issuers plan on following printing 10 year deals, where yields are almost positive.

Sameer Rehman, director of debt and capital markets at TD Securities in London, is heading back to Toronto after 12 years in the UK to focus on Canadian public sector borrowers.