Lloyds Bank

The UK’s Hyde Housing Association has signed two bank facilities totaling £350m, with the sector again providing business for deal-starved lenders.

Christopher White, global head of banks at Lloyds Banking Group, and Robert Ellison, his predecessor in that role, have founded Finance Unlocked, an online training company.

UniCredit has hired for a range of posts in its financing and advisory team, including roles in infrastructure, high yield, debt origination and as head of the Asia Pacific region.

Two UK housing associations have hit the loan market, with Sovereign signing its first unsecured revolving credit facility and Hyde bringing two facilities totalling £350m.

An undersupplied sterling bond market was on Wednesday given two new corporate deals to chew on: a £350m three year from carmaker BMW and a £250m no-grow eight year from UK retailer Marks & Spencer. Abertis Infraestructuras, the Spanish roll road operator, also offered a €1.3bn six and 10 year deal.

Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets, the non-ringfenced arm of Lloyds Banking Group, has made its capital markets debut. The UK bank went private to place short-end paper in both fixed and floating rate formats, ahead of a debut in the public market later this week.

The City of London Corporation, via its endowment fund The City’s Cash, has held its first roadshow for its inaugural US private placement notes. The funds will be partly used to finance the consolidation of the Billingsgate, Smithfield and Spitalfields wholesale food markets at a new site in Dagenham, Essex.

The City of London Corporation, via its endowment fund The City’s Cash, has launched first US private placements (PP), roadshowing the prospective notes this week and next. The funds will be partly used to finance the consolidation of the Billingsgate, Smithfield and Spitalfields wholesale food markets at a new site in Dagenham, Essex.

Motability Operations Group, the UK company that operates the UK government's scheme to provide cars for the disabled, printed a £1.438bn-equivalent euro and sterling three tranche bond on Wednesday, in a busy day that also brought a €1bn two part issue from OMV, the Austrian oil and gas company.

Vue International’s revamped refinancing let the credits roll in, delivering a far better performance than the original showing last year, thanks to part-owner Omers injecting £165m of subordinated debt, strong market conditions, and a successful six months for the cinema chain.

Toronto Dominion Bank has become only the second borrower from outside of the UK to sell a Sonia-linked covered bond, having quickly met enough orders on Monday to launch a £1bn offering in the sterling market.

UK banks jumped back into the bond market this week, enjoying good demand for their funding and capital products. But with the country’s financial institutions having loaded up heavily on debt already, and with political instability causing near constant volatility within the sector, some market participants wonder whether investors have had all the UK FIG bonds they can stand. Tyler Davies and Bill Thornhill report.