Europe

Onex Corporation, the Canadian private equity company, sold the last of its shares in Swiss packaging company SIG Combibloc on Monday evening, ending the association it has had with the company since it bought it in 2014. The block sold was worth Sfr657m ($725m).

Credit Suisse has picked the outgoing chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group, António Horta-Osório, as its next chairman.

Euro area finance ministers said on Monday evening that they would introduce a backstop for the Single Resolution Fund up to two years earlier than planned, following "substantial" risk reduction in the banking system.

Jean Pierre Mustier will retire as CEO of UniCredit in April, the bank announced this evening, as the board no longer agrees with his strategy. The change could mean UniCredit pivots towards Italian priorities and political influence.

The merger of S&P Global and IHS Markit, announced on Monday, will create a larger data provider for financial markets.

Schuldschein investors have soured on auto, travel and retail sector borrowers through the coronavirus pandemic, which had historically brought significant deal flow to the market. Now bookrunners are scrabbling to find new sectors for investors to lend to.

The Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank, is adding a “negative screening” process to its purchases of corporate bonds under its quantitative easing programme, meaning it will no longer buy the bonds of the most polluting companies.

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".