Morgan Stanley

The UK this week once again broke its record order book, with bankers suggesting the huge demand may have been down to investors taking their last chance for ultralong sovereign sterling paper for some time.

Natixis has hired Bryan North-Claus as head of fixed income sales Americas, as part of the French bank's push to improve its American business.

China Aoyuan Property Group took advantage of an improvement in its credit metrics and a recent ratings upgrade to return to the debt market for the second time this year, netting its targeted $250m in the process.

The loan backing Global Logistic Properties’ (GLP) leveraged buyout by a consortium of Chinese investors has been launched into senior syndication at a smaller size of $4.108bn, said bankers arranging the financing.

Seed company Syngenta has mandated banks for a global dollar transaction, its first foray into the market since China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina) completed its acquisition of the company this summer.

The pattern of equity-linked issues coming in pairs continued on Wednesday, when Qiagen and Capital Stage successfully sold bonds. Both transactions were unusual, though in contrasting ways.

Beijing Hyundai Motor Group is gearing up for a Rmb3.5bn ($535.9m) deal in China’s asset-backed securitization market, just over three months after completing a transaction of the same size.

Action in Asia ex-Japan’s offshore bond market picked up on Wednesday, with property developers from Greater China announcing new transactions.

The UK Debt Management Office (DMO) tapped a 2065 line for £4bn on Tuesday, upping the size of the transaction because of “impressive quality of demand”.

On Tuesday, pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline returned to the corporate bond market for the first time since November 2014, and its rarity value contributed to combined order books of over €5.5bn for the triple tranche deal.

The dry spell is over for investors in emerging market debt with several mandates hitting the screens on Tuesday. The first trades will be eagerly watched as a barometer for new issue premiums after a summer that has seen escalating geopolitical tensions and further questions about the direction of travel of both the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve.

Steinhoff International, the South African conglomerate, has opened the books on the IPO of Steinhoff Africa Retail (Star), a company formed from its African retail assets, which could value the business at up to R79.3bn ($6.1bn) if it is priced at the top of its range.