JP Morgan

The power of equity capital markets to solve complex corporate finance problems elegantly was vividly demonstrated on Tuesday night when JP Morgan and Crédit Agricole led a €2bn sale of Vivendi’s whole 27% stake in Ubisoft, the video game developer, writes Sam Kerr.

Details have emerged on £1.5bn of underwritten loans for the UK’s Phoenix Group, as the life assurance fund consolidator moves closer to its £3.24bn cash and shares purchase of Standard Life Aberdeen’s insurance arm.

GlobalCapital revealed the winners of its Equity Capital Markets Awards 2017 at our third annual Awards Dinner in London on March 20. CEOs and CFOs were present to collect Awards for landmark deals such as the UniCredit and Santander rights issues and the IPOs of Allied Irish Banks and Pirelli.

Glencore, the Swiss commodities trading and mining company, has breathed some life into Europe's equity-linked market with a $500m equity-neutral convertible bond due in 2025.

The Council of Europe Development Bank returned to the market for socially responsible investments on Tuesday, printing a seven year “social inclusion” bond.

The strong performance of Siemens Healthineers in the aftermarket has boosted the European IPO market and a raft of new listings are already covered ahead of their conclusions this week.

UK property company Hammerson has signed a new £1.5bn three year revolving credit facility, bringing in a dozen banks for a financing aimed at slashing the funding costs of its acquisition target, Intu.

Bandhan Bank is set to price its Rp44.7bn ($685.7m) IPO in India at the top of the indicative range following a blowout response, making it the country’s largest float on record by a bank.

Italian business software vendor TeamSystem returned to the public bond market to refinance a floating rate note it placed privately in 2016, as high yield fund managers increase their demand for floating rate debt this year.

The auto finance arm of General Motors opted for shorter maturities to try to ensure the success of its first bond sale of 2018 on Monday. But the €1bn dual-tranche deal only received orders of €1.7bn and the lead managers were only able to tighten one of the tranches from initial price thoughts.

Baidu-backed video streaming platform iQiyi kicked off bookbuilding for its $2.38bn US listing on Monday and was covered quickly.

Two central and eastern European corporates announced euro trades on Friday, adding to a busy pipeline of emerging markets deals.