Europe

Kommunalbanken and L-Bank will each bring a dollar benchmark to the market on Tuesday, in what could be the final public SSA deals in the currency this year.

Gore Street Energy Storage Fund, is seeking to raise up to £60m, to buy new energy storage projects, following on from fellow battery fund Gresham House that priced a deal last week.

Covered bond bankers have swept aside a series of negative reports on the outlook for the mortgage market from the European Banking Authority, European Central Bank and rating agencies, arguing that covered bonds will remain unassailable, come what may.

The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Turkey’s largest city, and VakifBank have both mandated banks to arrange dollar bond syndications. The trades come just days after the sovereign squeezed into the market before the US Thanksgiving holiday to raise a tightly priced dollar bond.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) has declared the end of the Basel III policy agenda, promising that any further reforms in this area will be "limited in nature".

Ed Mulderrig has been appointed head of European debt syndicate at UBS, the latest in a series of changes to the responsibilities of the firm's senior debt capital markets bankers.

Three of France’s best known entrepreneurs have partnered up to launch a special purpose acquisition vehicle (Spac) on the French stock exchange, which is seeking to invest in organic and sustainable consumer goods. The deal has made a fast start on its first day of book building.

French hotels group Accor this week became the latest issuer to tap the convertible bond market for financing in the wake of the rally in value stocks following positive Covid vaccine news in early November.

Charlie Nunn, HSBC's global chief executive for wealth and personal banking, has been appointed as the next chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group.

Italy returned to the private placement market to print one of the year’s largest MTNs on Thursday. The deal stood out this week, since issuance in the market has started to wind down ahead of Christmas.

This week in Keeping Tabs: a proposal to replace green bonds with certificates, the dramatic consequences of low rates, and a different side to viruses.

Bank lenders are hopeful that volumes across the typically active central and eastern Europe region will pick up, after what has been a disappointing year. This week Romanian meat processing company Carmistin Group raised a syndicated loan from a range of regional lenders, which is one of only five deals signed in the country this year.