Europe

Angus Whelchel, who was global head of private capital markets and a managing director at Barclays, has left the bank, according to market sources.

The UK government’s steps to reopen its economy are proving a boon for Whitbread, the parent of Premier Inn and Beefeater Restaurants, which is set to complete a £1bn rights issue on Wednesday.

Spain and SNCF SA announced new euro benchmarks with 20 year maturities on Monday, following the European Investment Bank’s record-breaking effort in the tenor last Friday.

Kommunalbanken is looking to take advantage of the hot demand in the long end of the dollar curve, while the Inter-American Development Bank has chosen a more common maturity in the belly of the curve.

After the global eruption of the coronavirus pandemic, issuers such as governments, central banks and companies have been prompted to create new strategies to tackle the negative effects. Banks have also recently begun issuing labelled bonds linked ot their Covid responses.

The Swedish debt office has provided further details of its planned inaugural green bond, announcing the framework, size and month of its issue.

LBBW printed the first Pfandbrief since the onset of the coronavirus crisis with a deal that was priced flat to fair value. The high level of demand suggested good scope for the bond to perform and showed that investors are ready to buy, even though the deal was priced tighter than German Laender bonds — which is very unusual.

Greece and Ireland are set to test the primary bond market this week, returning to one buoyed by a fresh injection of confidence after the European Central Bank expanded its Pndemic Emergency Purchase Programme (Pepp) last week.

Veon, the emerging markets telecommunications firm, has mandated for a rouble bond issue, six months since its last trade, a hard currency offering.

La Banque Postale and Société Générale took advantage of favourable conditions in the financial institutions bond market on Monday to launch non-preferred senior deals in euros and make progress towards completing their 2020 funding plans.

The surprising rise in global stock markets continued last week with a strong rally on Friday after US job figures were better than expected. The resilience of secondary equity markets, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, is a boost for those lining up equity block sales.

This week's funding scorecard looks at the progress European sovereigns have made in their funding programmes in early June.