Europe

Several senior equity capital markets bankers have been let go as part of UBS’s reorganisation of its underperforming investment bank, including the global head of equity capital markets.

PSA Group, the French auto manufacturer, has appointed advisory banks to aid it in its all-share merger with Fiat Chrysler.

Gestamp, the Spanish automotive engineering company, has closed its Schuldschein with indications of a final size at about €180m. Market players believe that Spain and Italy may be the next key sources of growth in the years to come.

Elree Winnett Seelig will become the first head of environmental, social and governance in Citi’s markets and securities services (MSS) unit, working with another internal appointment, Olga Sviatochevski.

German private equity firm Aurelius is preparing a high yield bond issue of up to €200m issue of senior unsecured five year floating rate notes in the Nordic market. Another investment group, Chinese Fosun, also tapped the markets with a €400m issue of unsecured senior notes.

Atos, the French IT services and consulting company, has reduced its exposure to Worldline via an intricate transaction involving a share sale, an exchangeable bond and a private placement of stock. In addition to the sale of shares owned by Atos, SIX Group entered into a collar transaction to hedge its exposure in Worldline.

Demand for covered bonds issued on Wednesday by Deutsche Kreditbank (DKB) and BPCE exploded towards the final hour of book building, as the European Central Bank placed crushingly large orders for the deals. Even though the granularity of the order books was good on this occasion, the central bank’s larger than expected presence was expected to displace real investors.

There is a growing pipeline of subordinated bond issuance in the FIG market this week, as issuers think about their regulatory requirements and find no reason to wait in light of a recently favoruable backdrop.

Deutsche Bank posted declines in investment bank revenue on the back of a fixed income trading fall in its third quarter results, released on Wednesday. But debt origination revenue grew. A change in the bank’s reporting structure to reflect its new capital release unit has allowed it to shield the investment bank from costly losses on unwanted assets.

The IPOs of Française des Jeux, the operator of the French national lottery, and DNEG, the UK special effects company, are both gaining strong traction among IPO investors hoping for a strong finish to 2019.

Emerging market issuers continued to enjoy solid market conditions this week with new mandates joining the pipeline and Abu Dhabi’s Mamoura executing a $3.5bn triple tranche trade.

Restructuring costs led Deutsche Bank to a net loss of €832m in the third quarter of the year, leading investors to doubt the potential for reliable performance in the issuer’s fixed income securities.