Mizuho

French toll road operator APRR started its funding plans earlier than previous years when it sold a €500m nine year deal on Thursday. Its November deal was its only transaction in 2018, but even in busier years it has waited until May before getting started.

Mizuho International said it had hired Christoph Seibel, head of EMEA corporate debt capital markets at RBC Capital Markets, to be chief executive of its EU operations, Mizuho Securities Europe.

French toll road operator APRR started its funding plans earlier than previous years when it sold a €500m nine year deal on Thursday. The company’s November deal was its only transaction in 2018, but even in busier years it has waited until May to get started.

Railway and toll road constructor Shandong Hi-Speed Group became the latest issuer to opt for a short tenor for its bond this week, in a bid to speed up the issuance process while keeping the yield low.

Qatar’s Doha Bank has closed a $525m unsecured facility as lenders demonstrated healthy appetite for the small and politically isolated Gulf country.

Equate Group, the Kuwaiti petrochemical producer, has amended and extended its $1.9bn term loan and $1bn revolving credit facility, achieving a reduction in pricing and strong demand from international lenders.

Housing Development Finance Corp is taking the Samurai loan route for its second syndicated financing of the year.

Mizuho International, the London securities and investment banking arm of the Japanese banking group, has cut jobs in its capital markets business over the past week, and among those leaving is a senior DCM banker.

Policy lender China Development Bank printed a dual-currency, three-tranche transaction on Tuesday, raising $2.4bn-equivalent. While it paid just a couple of basis points of new issue premium for the dollar bonds amid a short-lived market rally, demand for the euro portion exceeded expectations.

China Vanke Co rode the positive momentum that followed the truce in the China and US trade war, raising $630m after an aggressive tightening in price. But the movements in the US Treasury market, including a curve inversion between three and five year notes, hit the secondary performance of the company’s bond.

ICBC International Holdings, a wholly-owned Hong Kong subsidiary of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, is about to close a dual-tranche borrowing of between $100m and $200m.

Element Materials Technology, the UK materials testing company owned by Bridgepoint, was looking for a small loan extension this week, and seeking consent from its investors for higher leverage ratios under the loan covenants.