Europe
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Banco de Sabadell’s debt securities took a nose-dive in the secondary market on Friday morning, after the Spanish lender said that it had failed to agree on the terms of a merger with BBVA. -
Greencoat Renewables, the Irish wind farms fund managed by Greencoat Capital, launched a €100m equity capital raise on Thursday to free-up funds for acquisitions.
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Schroder British Opportunities Trust, a new listed fund set up by Schroders to invest in undervalued UK equities, has completed its IPO on the London Stock Exchange, raising just £75m.
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Santander UK has requested investors’ consent to alter the terms of four sterling covered bonds from referencing Libor to Sonia. The borrower will use the same method it used when converting its additional tier one notes for the fixed rate deals, while changing the floating rate notes will be a simpler task.
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Enel is planning €10bn of extra renewable energy investment in Europe, as a result of the support it hopes to get from the European Union’s €750bn recovery fund. But it believes the EU should refine its aid to subsidise sustainable finance more directly.
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A new UK national infrastructure bank, announced by the government on Wednesday, is set to be up and running quickly, although details remain thin on the ground. While framed around infrastructure, a big part of its mandate could relate to the country's net zero carbon plans.
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European banks are running out of ways of selling senior bonds at positive yields. A near-miss from Svenska Handelsbanken this week was enough to convince the market that it’s only a matter of time before an issuer breaks the 0% barrier, write Tyler Davies and Frank Jackman.
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UK government borrowing is rocketing, with the country intending to borrow £485.5bn in its 2020/21 financial year. This has already pushed up its debt to GDP ratio over 100%, but the announcement of next quarter’s £92bn remit caused scarcely a ripple in the Gilts market on Wednesday. Market participants believe that any problems of debt sustainability or spiralling inflation are too distant a prospect to trouble them, writes Lewis McLellan.
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MUFG is overhauling personnel and its business model to try to escape a cycle of low returns, writes David Rothnie.
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The green bond market is set to grow in Swiss francs, as domestic investors turn towards the product. This week, Swiss Prime Site, a local real estate developer, made use of this demand to sell one of the largest Swissie real estate bonds in over six years.
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The European Union impressed once again this week as it sold the third and final bond of the year under its Support to Mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) funding programme.
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