Europe

Germany’s CureVac has gone public on the Nasdaq, joining the army of biotech companies that have tapped the equity capital markets for cash during the pandemic, despite growing concern of a brewing dot-com style bubble.

Spanish telecommunications infrastructure company Cellnex has finished its €4bn rights issue to fund further M&A opportunities, with an extremely high oversubscription.

Hong Kong-listed Summit Ascent Holdings, an investment holding company focused on operating resorts, is planning a rights issue worth HK$1.6bn ($206m).

The coronavirus crisis has reshaped many aspects of finance, but not the line-up of top investment banks. It does appear to have pressed some firms into sharp decisions, though.

A sombre set of second quarter earnings has done little to frighten credit investors away from European banks this month. Fund managers believe the sector is well capitalised enough to withstand any reasonable shock from Covid-19, putting subordinated bonds in an ideal position to rally into the end of the year, writes Tyler Davies.

As investment bankers got used to working from home in the first half of the year, many more whistleblowing cases were opened by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority. Meanwhile, challenges around monitoring staff and forging a bank’s internal culture have not gone away just because the workforce is outside of the office.

Domestic lenders across central and eastern Europe, often government owned, have stepped up during the coronavirus pandemic to provide substantially more funding than ever before. But international bankers still see plenty of syndicated lending opportunities in the region.

Société Générale and Natixis have purged their senior ranks following second-quarter losses and to prepare for strategic revamps, but David Rothnie thinks the future will remain challenging for both.

An improvement in the cross-currency basis swap has made dollar funding look more attractive to covered bond issuers, but this is not expected to lead to higher supply with bank senior unsecured dollar paper looking the more compelling option.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) broke the silence in the SSA market with a Canadian dollar sustainable development bond. The deal shared the market with a dollar trade from Kommuninvest, with both issuers steering clear of the almost dormant euro market.

Convertible bond market participants are expecting a busy September for new issuance, including a potential resurgence of distressed deals if an economic recovery from the pandemic and associated lockdowns fails to materialise.

A technical issue around data submission meant that the euro area short term rate (€STR) did not have enough data to be calculated in the usual way on Tuesday morning, forcing the ECB to use its contingency method.