Lloyds Bank

Lloyds Bank is set to bring the first ever FIG benchmark linked to Sonia on Tuesday, alongside three issuers bringing euro benchmarks and one selling a tap.

While Brexit negotiations continued and banks juggled their contingency plans for various outcomes, two UK corporate issuers successfully accessed the euro corporate bond market this week.

On Wednesday, UK contract catering company Compass Group joined the euro corporate bond market rush with a new 10 year tranche as well as selling a seven year sterling tranche.

Durham University has raised £225m in a triple tranche US private placement, as competitive pricing and the range of available tenors lured the unrated credit to the private market.

The autumn term has definitely begun in Europe’s corporate bond market. BMW and Daimler, which launched deals last week, may have been the scholarship swots who returned extra-early, but this week the whole sweaty gang of issuers is back en masse, and making plenty of noise.

Lloyds Banking Group entered the Swiss franc bond market on Thursday after a seven year absence.

UK real estate investment trust Segro has sold €300m 10 and 15 year US private placement (PP) notes, to a group of institutional investors.

European banks have taken full advantage of a window for issuance after second quarter results, with Lloyds Banking Group becoming the latest name to test the depth of the dollar market in the middle of summer.

A financial institutions debt capital markets banker at Lloyds Bank is moving over to the syndicate desk.

Colin Withers left ING’s EM and high yield syndicate last week after seven years at the bank and shortly before Uzair Burney, a high yield syndicate official from Lloyds, is set to join the desk.

Connect Plus (M25), the project company that manages the M25 motorway around London, has priced its first public bond issue, for £893m, to unwind interest rate swaps from 2009 and refinance part of a £1bn loan.

Toyota’s Australian finance arm ended a 14 year hiatus from issuing bonds in sterling this week when it sold the first sterling corporate bond of the second half of 2018. The breadth of the sterling investor community was evident in the order book, but the depth was not.