Europe

A number of top staff at Natixis's corporate and investment banking division have started new jobs, the latest moves in a bout of seat hopping at the top table in this part of the bank.

Commerzbank has appointed Sabrina Kensy as head of the Mittelstandsbank for a large part of Germany. She replaces Michael Kotzbauer, who took up a post as board member for the bank's corporate clients division at the beginning of this year.

AUTO1, one of Europe’s largest digital marketplaces for the sale of second hand cars, has joined the continent’s burgeoning IPO pipeline.

Wizz Air proved on Wednesday that markets are open for even those debut emerging market issuers in affected sectors. The European airline raised a benchmark sized bond in its inaugural euro transaction.

Turkey’s Yapi Kredi, Russia’s Credit Bank of Moscow and Banque Ouest Africaine de Banque Ouest Africaine de Développement have all approached investors this week to sound out interest in hard currency bonds.

US private equity group KKR has cut the size of its stake in ProSiebenSat.1 Media, the German media company, raising €148.50m.

The covered bond market went from famine to feast on Wednesday with a wide array of deals that all went very well.

InPost, the Polish provider of postal lockers, has launched an IPO on the Amsterdam stock exchange, seeking to build on the momentum of compatriot e-commerce companies in equity capital markets, as exemplified by Allegro's IPO last year.

Komerční banka sold the Czech Republic’s first euro denominated benchmark covered bond on Wednesday, landing flat to the curve of its Slovakian neighbours despite the European Central Bank’s absence from the book.

DZ Bank said this week that it will redeem eight tier one bonds issued out of special purpose vehicles, in preparation of the EU’s Capital Requirements Regulation transition period ending.

Spain is planning to issue its hotly anticipated inaugural green bond in the second half of the year through syndication in what will be the first step in the sovereign’s ambition to become a regular green issuer and build out a curve in the format.

Latvian covered bond legislation permitting the cross-border recognition of cover pool assets is expected to be enacted later this year. The new law is considered to be essential for the development of a pan-Baltic covered bond market, legal experts have said.