Europe

Shares in Sirius Minerals, the UK firm that is battling to build a mine for polyhalite fertiliser beneath the North York Moors, rallied significantly on Wednesday after the company said it was in advanced takeover discussions with Anglo American.

ABN Amro and Deutsche Bank opened books on new senior deals in the sterling bond market, with bankers recognising that the currency is 'working very well' for international names.

Calisen Group, the KKR-backed manufacturer of smart energy appliances, is preparing to raise £300m via an IPO on the London Stock Exchange, having announced its intention to float on Thursday.

The first Kangaroo deals of 2020 from SSAs started trickling through this week, after ANZ blew the doors off the Australian dollar market with a A$3.5bn ($2.4bn) self-led domestic deal on Tuesday.

Crédit Agricole Italia marketed a dual-tranche bond with eight year and 25 year maturities. A steeper curve helped the longer tranche offer a higher pickup against the shorter bond, but investors still placed hefty orders on both tenors.

German agricultural machinery firm Claas has entered the Schuldschein market for a minimum of €150m, with one of the deal's tranches not settling until mid-August.

Four issuers landed non-preferred senior deals in the euro market on Thursday, dispelling fears among some syndicate managers that investors’ enthusiasm for the asset class might be beginning to wane.

Turkiye Sinai Kalkinma Bankasi (TSKB) has mandated for a five year senior unsecured dollar bond as investors breathed a sigh of relief over the calming of tensions between the US and Iran.

Investors placed €10bn of orders behind a new additional tier one from Banco Santander on Thursday, as the Spanish bank put an end to a long-running drama over its redemption policy by calling a bond it extended multiple times in 2019.

Spain’s formation on Monday of a Socialist-led coalition government, even one with no parliamentary majority, has opened the way for the country to press ahead with launching its first green bond. The deal of about €5bn is likely to be syndicated in the second half of 2020, and could prove one of the prize mandates of the year for banks to compete for.

European corporate bond issuers started pushing out their debt maturities on Wednesday, as BMW Finance and Digital Realty issued 10 year and longer paper, even though some investors are keen to rein in duration in their portfolios.

Oil major BP's A1 rating from Moody's, which is somewhat strained, has been strengthened by its $625m sale of its interest in a North Sea oil field to Premier Oil.