Europe

The European Commission will put forward a legislative proposal next week that could give banks more room for flexibility when applying the IFRS 9 accounting standards.

Bpifrance became the first French issuer to sell a Covid-19 response bond on Friday, raising €1.5bn.

Citigroup has made Stefan Hafke chief country officer in Germany for good, after he took the job on an interim basis earlier this year.

Swedbank was paying less than fair value for a new euro senior deal on Friday, according to market participants, with the bank raising funding a day after publishing its first quarter results.

The European Council announced little in the way of progress following its meeting on Thursday night, but spreads for bonds from the eurozone periphery proved more resilient than they did following the Eurogroup’s meeting two weeks ago.

Wells Fargo was set to raise €3bn of senior debt in the euro market on Friday, becoming the first US bank to visit the currency following first quarter results.

Dufry, the Swiss duty free concession operator, attracted healthy demand for its emergency sale of new shares and convertible bonds on Thursday night — a transaction designed to raise as much liquidity as possible so it can survive the coronavirus pandemic, which has led to a huge drop in the number of shoppers at its airport stores.

Legal & General and Phoenix Group Holdings have lifted the lid on subordinated bond supply in the sterling market this week, with spreads having drawn tighter despite uncertainty about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The European Mortgage Federation and European Covered Bond Council has introduced new features to its harmonised transparency template (HTT) and, at the same time, its Covid-19 task force has published the first monitoring report that contains a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of all national and international policy responses.

A slide in euro and dollar MTN volumes has given Scandinavian banks the chance to propel themselves up the MTN leader board.

SEB is creating a new sustainable finance unit to broaden its offering across the whole bank, and is building a team including country heads — the first of which is Lars Eibeholm, who will join the bank from the Nordic Investment Bank in the summer.

Firms can spend vast amounts of time window-dressing their balance sheets to look the best they possibly can within the limits of reporting regulations. Within those limits, everything goes.