Europe

The Republic of Serbia this week raised a dollar bond in its second offering of the year, in what has been an exceptionally busy year for central and eastern European sovereign issuers.

This week's funding scorecard looks at the progress French agencies have made in their funding programmes in November.

United Overseas Bank has mandated leads for the first euro covered bond benchmark from a Singapore lender since September 2018. The deal takes advantage of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) recent decision to increase covered bond issuance capacity.

Schroders, the UK asset management company, has partnered with Big Society Capital to seek to list a new fund on the London Stock Exchange to invest in assets which have a positive social impact on the UK.

The IPO of Nordnet, the Swedish digital bank and investment management platform, is due to be priced at Skr96, the midpoint of the initial range, when bookbuilding ends on Monday.

Kommuninvest and the Kingdom of Sweden both took to the market this week, pulling off successful trades in a buoyant market.

This week in Keeping Tabs: US treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin asks the Fed to give back emergency funding, bond markets prove their real worth, and why Brexit negotiators need to realise that English isn’t the only language.

Sweden set out on Friday how it will apply the EU’s latest capital rules to its banks. Market participants highlighted that the planned changes would give issuers less headroom over the coupon cancellation threshold for their additional tier ones (AT1s).

UK chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak is looking at ways to relax listing rules on the London Stock Exchange to make the exchange more attractive for tech company IPOs.

Millicom International Cellular has sold a 5.2% stake in Helios Towers, the Africa-focused telecommunications infrastructure company, through an accelerated bookbuild.

Smurfit Kappa, the Irish packaging company, priced a €660m capital raise on Thursday night, to allow it to take advantage of market opportunities during the Covid-19 recovery, as well as give it the firepower to withstand any downturns.

Small transactions reached big audiences in the financial institutions bond market this week, as investors realised they would need to consider buying sub-benchmark supply in order to make the most of a dwindling deal pipeline. Tyler Davies and Frank Jackman report.