Europe

Luminor’s Estonian cover pool will have Latvian mortgages, Bawag’s Austrian cover pool will include Dutch mortgages. And once merger plans are fully completed, Caixabank’s cover pool will include those from Bankia, making it Spain's biggest, with a share of almost a third of the Spanish covered bond market.

The UK government’s sudden volte face this week about working from home may slow coronavirus infections but it betrayed a fundamental lack of strategic thinking and stability over the most pressing concerns. That should worry the City, which is in a fight for its future as a leading financial centre, as a result of Brexit.

The UK rode out renewed fears of the resurgent coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday, printing its second syndicated deal of the month with an order book over seven times covered.

Romania’s promotion to secondary emerging market status in the FTSE Russell EM index is the spark its capital markets desperately need in order to grow, experts have said.

If the European Central Bank (ECB) is serious about eventually scaling back its quantitative easing programme and encouraging a return to normal market funding, it will need all tools at its disposal. That suggests there is scope for an instrument that delivers a low cost of funding and supports the European economy. European Secured Notes (ESNs), which are likely to form part of the European Commission’s capital markets action plan, which is to be unveiled this Thursday, could provide the answer.

Financial institutions are waiting to see whether investors will step back into the credit market before attempting to bring new deals forward this week.

Equity capital markets bankers were taking stock of a big move down in equity markets on Monday as Covid-19 infection rates rose in Europe and the UK government signalled the imposition of social restrictions to combat the disease. That has focused minds on deal execution, particularly the rights issue of IAG, which was set to close this week.

Russian brokerage BCS Global Markets has hired a senior executive from Citi to run its equities business.

Swiss real estate developer Epic Suisse has set the terms for its IPO on the SIX Swiss Exchange, which could value the company at up to Sfr778m ($839.56m).

Goldman Sachs has named new global M&A bosses, with the incumbents moving to become chairs of the business.

The European Central Bank (ECB) could be considering merging the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) and its longstanding Asset Purchase Programme (APP). If it does, this would amount to the bank discarding its self-imposed limits on quantitative easing.

The IPO of Belgian fintech company UnifiedPost Group is set to be priced at €20 a share, the top of the initial range, according to a source close to the transaction.