Europe

The IPO of Soltec Power, the Spanish maker of solar trackers for renewable energy generation, is due to be priced at €4.82, the top of the initial range, after attracting strong demand from investors keen to add stocks with strong ESG credentials to their portfolios during the pandemic.

This week in Keeping Tabs: how the European Central Bank could decarbonise its corporate bond book, how digital banks would suffer if the Bank of England goes negative, and what UK financial services policy could look like after Brexit.

Greece hit the market this week with a €2bn tap, neatly threading a needle between the EU’s jumbo debut and a hefty 30 year from Italy. But unlike other sovereigns, the exercise was not a scramble for cash to mitigate the impact of the pandemic.

European banks could be set for a wave of calls and tenders on legacy debt instruments, after the European Banking Authority demanded a clean-up this week. Action may not be immediate, however, with markets still seeking clarity on a number of key issues.

Aedifica, the Belgian real estate company that specialises in care homes for the elderly, has secured an 83.7% take-up for its €459m rights issue.

Barclays enjoyed a record quarter in equities, but in its advisory and equity capital markets it lagged behind competitors, it showed in third quarter results on Friday.

This week's funding scorecard looks at the progress European sovereigns have made in their funding programmes towards the end of October.

UK banks and building societies are struggling with difficult aspects of incorporating climate change into their risk management, as demanded by the regulator, a PwC survey has found. The answer to some of their problems could be a non-risk initiative: science-based targets.

Markets rejoiced this week after the Bank of England proposed policy changes that will make it harder for UK lenders to run into automatic restrictions on their additional tier one coupons and equity dividends. The move was seen as a way of addressing concern about ‘buffer usability’, which has come to the fore during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Prudential rules will become more supportive for UK banks after Brexit.

After months of waiting as even the great whites of the SSA oceans kept clear of primary bond sales in anticipation, the EU — now a bond market megalodon by comparison — cruised into a bait ball a quarter of a trillion euros big this week to take a €17bn bite out of its enormous pandemic recovery borrowing programme. Lewis McLellan and Bill Thornhill report.

Europe’s bevy of recovery lending packages is undoubtedly a welcome gesture, but it may remain just that — a gesture. If trends continue as they are, some countries may prefer market lending to concessional loans from Europe.