HSBC

Two supranational borrowers have accessed capital markets for niche currency private placements in the past week, as investors spy possible re-entry points in currencies that have suffered throughout 2016.

ECM activity in Asia has slowed to a trickle in the week before Christmas, but investors still have something to chew on courtesy of two real estate investment trusts in southeast Asia.

Volvo Cars, the Swedish car company owned by Zhejiang Geely Holding of China, has raised Skr5bn ($530m) in a private placement of preference shares, which might be converted to listed shares if Volvo completes an IPO.

The Z5.14bn (€1.16bn) of loans for the leveraged buy-out of Allegro, the Polish online marketplace, have been allocated, with the leads choosing zloty rather than senior or junior euro bonds for the second lien piece.

Turkish participation bank Turkiye Finans (TFKB) has agreed a $180m Islamic club loan with similar pricing to its loans in recent years, despite sector-wide downgrades for Turkish banks after a turbulent year in the country in 2016.

Elysium Healthcare, the property portfolio being spun out of the Priory Group to BC Partners, has cut its sterling loan offering to £133m after reaching a ground rent agreement mid-transaction.

HSBC has announced three appointments in its e-trading business, which, according a memo seen by GlobalCapital, 'plays a pivotal role in the transformation of our fixed income business'.

Four European lenders have turned down a $2bn loan for National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD), while local banks are starting to return to secondary markets for the first time in a year — signs that the Middle Eastern loan market could see a different set of banks driving it in 2017. Elly Whittaker reports.

Asia’s brokerages have needed to stay nimble in the face of volatile markets and changing regulation that has tested their industry. HSBC and CLSA are well placed to meet the challenge after coming out top in the Asiamoney Brokers Poll. Peter McGill reports.

BlackRock has been awarded the first Renminbi Qualified Institutional Investor (RQFII) licence in the US this week providing further momentum to America's push in RMB internationalisation.

NMC Health, the London-listed company that claims to be the leading private sector healthcare operator in the United Arab Emirates, raised £255.4m on Wednesday in an intraday equity bookbuild.

National Bank of Abu Dhabi signed a $2bn three year loan on Tuesday, cementing the bank group for its $175bn merger with First Gulf Bank, though some key European banks turned down a role on the deal.