Europe

IAG, the airline holding company which owns British Airways, has launched a €2.75bn (£2.49bn) rights issue to give it enough liquidity to withstand Covid-19 disruption until 2023.

UK lenders used the second quarter of 2020 to ramp up their provisions against loan losses, greatly exceeding the market’s already high expectations for new reserves

Eric Bai and Alexander Paul have been appointed to the newly created roles of global co-heads of FIG coverage at HSBC.

A decision by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) last week regarding European Union multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) and organised trading facilities (OTFs) could be a glum preview of the UK’s cross-border regulatory affairs.

Citi, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse all launched pledges related to environmentally friendly financing this week, as banks face continued pressure to make their balance sheet greener. The details of the announcements also displayed how the idea of “transitioning” high-carbon companies to become more sustainable has become popular in banking.

The Single Supervisory Mechanism has been making all the right moves during the coronavirus crisis.

Falls in the Turkish lira have reignited concerns about a currency crisis this week, with the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey’s (CBRT) unorthodox exchange rate policy raising questions from investors about the robustness of the country’s respected banking sector. Mariam Meskin and Ross Lancaster report.

Regular credits in the private placement markets in Europe, like UK utilities, have disappeared from the scene since the coronavirus pandemic began because investors have not managed to reduce their yield targets to compete with pricing in public markets. Silas Brown reports.

Despite the coronavirus crisis and uncertainty about the November US election, the Swiss franc market is feeling optimistic for the second half of the year, expecting a strong run of issuance until late autumn.

KfW tapped an October 2034 line on Tuesday, enjoying impressive demand for the €1bn trade after the strong performance of the Bund curve sent investors hunting for yield.

The transposition of the covered bond directive into national legislative frameworks is expected to have been completed by all member states within the next six months. But the clock is ticking, and a decision on whether to postpone implementation will be discussed in September.

James Palmer has been named interim head of equity capital markets for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Bank of America. He replaces Sam Losada, who is leaving the bank to join Morgan Stanley.