Europe

Banco BPM’s has amended its covered bond documentation to include loans affected by Italy’s mortgage moratorium in the asset coverage test (ACT), highlighting the challenge to transparency caused by discrepancies between issuer's programmes — even within the same country.

The IPO of Exasol, the German database analytics firm, has launched on the Frankfurt exchange in the same week as Pexip, the Norwegian video conferencing firm, priced its Nkr2.14bn ($206m) listing in Oslo following a fully electronic marketing process.

The European Stability Mechanism's (ESM) Pandemic Crisis Support programme may now be in place but what it has really shown up, especially in light of Germany's Federal Constitutional Court verdict on ECB QE last week, is that the eurozone badly needs the European Commission to pull its finger out and agree a recovery fund.

Santander has hired António Simões from HSBC as its regional head of Europe.

GIC, the Singapore sovereign wealth fund, sold 115m shares in medical product and technologies company ConvaTec on Monday night following a huge rally in the stock price.

The wave of accelerated capital raisings in the UK in response to the Covid-19 crisis has caused consternation in some circles because retail investors cannot access to these deals. While the principle of shareholder equality is without doubt a noble one, in reality larger shareholders have always had more access to equity capital markets deals than retail investors have.

Steel maker ArcelorMittal has raised over $2bn through a sale of new shares and mandatory convertible bonds after posting a $1bn loss in the first quarter because of the Covid-19 global pandemic, which has caused demand for steel to plunge.

Public sector borrowers found plenty of demand as they hit the market with dollar deals across the curve on Tuesday. With robust demand and a favourable basis swap for euro funders, more issuers have lined up deals in the currency to follow.

Luca Bertalot, secretary-general of the European Mortgage Federation-European Covered Bond Council (EMF-ECBC), speaks to GlobalCapital about the covered bond market living up to its reputation, the ECBC’s Covid-19 task force and monitoring report, transparency enhancements, the scope for a revival of the public sector market, and how green European Secured Notes (ESNs) and covered bonds secured on energy efficient mortgages could be flagships in Europe’s economic recovery.

A block of 840,000 Delivery Hero shares was placed with investors on Monday night after a number of employees exercised stock options in the German food delivery company.

Safran, the French aerospace and defence company, has joined the long list of companies that have tapped the equity-linked market for funding during the Covid-19 global pandemic, by placing a new €800m convertible bond on Tuesday.

Iccrea Banca said on Tuesday that it had obtained the necessary regulatory approval to call two of its outstanding subordinated bonds, amid debate about the economic merits of leaving capital instruments outstanding.