Europe

The refurbishment of existing housing stock promises to deliver big strides in cutting global carbon emissions and will provide issuers with a large new stream of green collateral to issue green covered bonds.

The ECB has released the data breaking down the purchases it has made under the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme in June and July, revealing that it is still providing substantial support to the eurozone periphery.

European equity capital markets investors had a big night of secondary blocks to look at on Monday, with two large Swiss trades which totalled around Sfr1bn ($1.09bn) of volume combined. The transactions showed that there is still a market for block trades in large, liquid stocks with recent ECM pedigree.

JP Morgan has reorganised its team dedicated to advising clients on how to defend against campaigns by activist investors.

Credit Suisse opened books on a new additional tier one (AT1) in the dollar market on Tuesday, as bankers predicted that other European issuers could bring follow-on supply in the currency.

Italy will receive a €2bn loan from the European Investment Bank to help cover the reinforcement of its healthcare system required to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

Just a few few votes separate the leading contenders in some of the categories in GlobalCapital’s Covered Bond Awards 2020 survey and, with the outcome uncertain, market participants that have not voted yet are encouraged to do so soon.

Freeline Therapeutics, the UK gene therapeutics company, has set a pricing range for its Nasdaq listing, becoming the latest company from the red hot biotech sector to raise equity capital.

The State of Brandenburg will keep the primary euro public sector bond market ticking on Tuesday after mandating banks for a new 20 year bond for which it hopes to achieve a better outcome than Berlin's deal at the tenor last week.

HSBC revealed a big increase in credit loss provisions in its second quarter results on Monday, as it vowed to step up the pace of its strategy shift. In the investment bank, it was a strong outing for fixed income and currencies trading, but a disappointing quarter for equities.

The Vanguard Group, the US asset manager which pioneered low cost, index-tracking investment, has sold $3bn worth of private placements. According to GlobalCapital data, this deal is the largest ever recorded in the US private placement market.

The European Commission’s proposed amendment to the Liquidity Coverage Ratio Delegated Act suggests covered bonds, such as those issued by NordLB Luxembourg and others, could be excluded, which could extinguish banks’ demand for them. However, it is likely that a solution referencing the covered bond directive will be found.