Europe

Canada’s Equitable Bank has registered its covered bond programme this week. It expects to issue its first transaction in euros at the short end of the curve in the second quarter.

Pension Insurance Corp (PIC) has given Livin Housing a further £30m of private placement funding, after lending the housing association in England’s County Durham £65m in April 2019. Market participants have told GlobalCapital that several other housing associations are readying private placement deals for the next few months.

Deutsche Bank opened books for the first sterling FIG deal in about a month on Thursday, following on from a strong euro transaction earlier this week.

Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT), a Swedish entertainment company that operates video streaming and television services, completed a Skr4.35bn ($523m) capital raise on Wednesday evening and attracted enough investor demand to price a larger deal than originally intended.

US banking group JP Morgan has sold a new three-year €390m synthetic bond exchangeable into shares in Siemens, the German industrial conglomerate.

Société Générale and Natixis both endured a difficult 2020 in their markets business, but in the fourth quarter their equities divisions managed to pull off a brighter performance.

UK biotech firms are continuing to reap the benefits from US listings. On Tuesday Autolus Therapeutics, an early stage biopharma firm backed by Syncona Investments, became the latest UK Biotech firm to raise capital on the US Nasdaq in a $100m transaction. The deal shows the continued advantages for early stage European biotech firms in having a US listing.

Aedifica, the Belgian healthcare property investment company, has closed its debut US private placement, according to market sources.

Achmea has become the latest Dutch bank to transition to a soft bullet maturity. This will have a material impact on central bank treatment and funding, but opportunities to extract value in the secondary market will be a challenge.

Chuka Umunna has been appointed by JP Morgan to a newly created post of head of ESG for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

KfW became the latest in a series of top SSA names to launch an ESG transaction in Canadian dollars, tapping into a growing base of investors in the country.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena said there were some “uncertainties” around its capital strengthening plans as it slumped to a €1.7bn annual loss on Wednesday. The Italian lender has recently denied rumours that it is working on an imminent sale of subordinated debt.