Goldman Sachs

Saipem, the Italian oil services company, on Thursday priced €1bn of unsecured bonds in a high yield market still looking at a thin pipeline.

More than $1.5bn worth of block trades completed within the space of three days this week showed that the summer break in European equity capital markets is well and truly over. The deals included two big Swedish sell-downs by EQT worth more than $500m, and a Sfr539m sale of Straumann Group shares.

UK distressed debt buyer Arrow Global this week returned to the market, after selling euros in April, with a refinancing deal to repay in full its 7.875% 2020 notes.

Postal Savings Bank of China met with the sponsors of its upcoming $8bn Hong Kong IPO in Beijing on Thursday as the issuer approaches hitting the market, according to a source involved in the transaction.

Big bids from across Europe allowed Slovenia to tighten pricing by more than 10bp on its euro market return on Wednesday.

Apax Partners and Guardian Media Group have raised £200m by selling down 20% of Ascential, the British information and events company, via an accelerated bookbuild launched on Wednesday evening.

The dollar market is set to remain the “darling” — in the words of one syndicate banker — currency in the coming weeks, after a trio of strong deals on Wednesday.

Slovenia became the first central and eastern European name to tap the core currency markets after the summer lull on Wednesday with a reopening of its €1bn March 2035s.

A trio of issuers on Tuesday mandated for dollar deals across the shorter end of the curve, as underlying US Treasury yields stayed slightly elevated after last Friday’s meeting of central bankers in Jackson Hole.

Postal Savings Bank of China is set to kick off investor education for its $8bn IPO after the Hong Kong Stock Exchange approved its plan on Thursday.

A surfeit of supply hit the long end of the covered bond curve this week as issuers piled in to take advantage of extraordinarily cheap funding conditions that are unlikely to last long. Bill Thornhill reports.

Bankers are braced for a bumper September of corporate dollar issuance as M&A funders look to tap the market amid huge demand for high grade paper.