Europe

The Bel Group, the French cheese company behind brands Babybel and The Laughing Cow, has become the first company to issue Euro private placement (Euro PP) notes with sustainability-linked margins, following in the footsteps of the loan market, the Schuldschein market and subsequently the bond market.

Hipgnosis Songs Fund Ltd, the London-listed fund that invests in music catalogues, has concluded its share sale, which the company announced last month to finance the acquisition of new song rights.

Kommunalbanken was almost twice covered for its 10 year euro trade on Thursday as it returned for its first benchmark in the currency since 2017.

The European Union returned to the MTN market for the first time since 2017 on Monday to finance the first of three €20m disbursements to Moldova.

Europe’s equity-linked bond market has been rocked this week, this time by fresh allegations of accounting fraud against Wirecard, the German payments processing company, less than a month after SoftBank issued a €900m exchangeable bond designed to derisk its investment in the company. Aidan Gregory reports.

Paolo Cicchine will join Deutsche Bank as vice-chairman of global healthcare coverage.

ING Poland has issued its first covered bond, a deal secured on green assets denominated in zloty. The issuer plans to return early next year with its first euro denominated green covered bond in benchmark size, said chief executive Boda Miroslaw,

Investors have piled into bonds to fund the buyout of UK theme park operator Merlin, despite the covenants on the unsecured debt being considered the worst ever. Meanwhile, the “net short” provision, designed to curb CDS investors, looks to have made it to the final documentation for the first time in a European deal.

German agency KfW revisited the Norwegian krone market yet again on Tuesday to place its 15th trade of the year in the currency. The deal brings KfW’s Nokkie issuance up to a record Nkr17bn ($1.9bn) for the year to date, according to Dealogic, Nkr250m more than its previous 2011 record.

Switzerland’s largest private and commercial vehicle leasing company starred in an otherwise quiet market for Swiss franc issuance this week.

NordLB Luxembourg Covered Bond Bank has mandated joint leads for a roadshow to market the first renewable energy covered bond to be issued under the country’s new lettres de gage énergies renouvelables legal framework. A trade is expected to follow soon.

Weichei, the Chinese industrial conglomerate, has shocked equity capital markets by cancelling the IPO of Italian yacht maker Ferretti the morning after books had closed and banks were waiting to be given the go-ahead to start allocating shares.