Lloyds Bank

The UK’s NCC Group has renewed its £100m revolving credit facility to stretch out the maturity, as loans bankers say the pipeline is looking bleak at the halfway point of the year.

Euro and dollar benchmarks issued by Nordea, Lloyds, Korea Housing Finance Corporation (KHFC) and SMBC on Tuesday was a fillip for covered bond market participants suffering through volatile credit market conditions that have caused price expectations to fall.

Cinema company Vue International has relaunched the refinancing of its capital structure that was mooted last year. It wants to clear out sterling and euros high yield bonds and replace them with euro loans.

After 10 days of very scanty issuance and some weak markets, more stable conditions on Tuesday brought a salvo of five deals to the euro corporate bond market, offering a wide range of single-A and triple-B credits.

The City of London Corporation, via its endowment fund ‘The City’s Cash’, is set to enter the US private placement (PP) market for the first time. 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.

Thursday’s corporate bond new issue action in Europe confirmed the picture presented on Wednesday: that investors were determined not to let macroeconomic issues bother them, and were piling into new issues. The day was less blemished than the previous one had been by volatility, enabling issuers to get some very tight spreads.

Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group kept the sterling covered bond market busy this week with Sonia-linked trades that drew strong demand and were priced with no new issue premium.

Lloyds Bank found good demand for its third visit to the sterling covered bond market in the last eight months and the largest Sonia linked bond of that type issued this year. Attractive relative value and a prospective supply slowdown propelled demand, enabling the deal to be priced flat to fair value.

The Co-operative Group, the UK food retailer and provider of funeral, legal and insurance services, launched its first sustainable bond on Wednesday and achieved impressive demand. But that had little to do with its ethical characteristics.

The Co-operative Group, the UK food retailer, undertaker, insurer and legal services provider, has announced a £250m sustainable bond issue which will be unusual in three ways. Green and sustainable bonds are rare in the UK and rare in the high yield market, while the use of proceeds Co-op is planning is close to unique.

The euro covered bond market is ‘wide open’ for any UK bank following a successful transaction this week from Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) and before that, Lloyds Bank. This supply could also provide a vital stepping stone to the first UK senior deal in euros this year, said bankers.

The UK’s McKay Securities has signed a £180m revolving credit facility, with the office and industrial REIT switching its bilateral loans for a bigger syndicated deal.