NatWest Markets

Obrascón Huarte Lain, the Spanish construction and concessions group, pounced on a super-tight high yield market today to issue a €300m bond, and found demand so strong that it was able to increase it to €400m.

ASB Finance made only its second trip to the sterling senior unsecured market on Tuesday, targeting a popular three year floating rate transaction and nudging up senior supply in a week that could be over in terms of issuance by as early as Wednesday.

Top RBS bankers Suneel Kamlani and John Owen have resigned following Group CEO Ross McEwan’s announcement that their divisions would be folded into corporate and institutional banking.

Royal Bank of Scotland reported a pre-tax loss of £8.2bn for the full-year 2013 on Thursday, its sixth consecutive year of losses since it was rescued in 2008 and a result that chief executive Ross McEwan called “sobering”.

Covered bond bankers have developed a penchant for testing market appetite on days when key buy-side accounts are likely to be thinly staffed it seems.

Nationwide Building Society has thrown its hat into the ring for selling additional tier one debt, mandating lead arrangers to gauge interest in what would be the first such deal to be denominated in sterling and the first AT1 paper to be sold by a non-bank institution.

Royal Bank of Scotland reported a pre-tax loss of £8.2bn for the full-year 2013 on Thursday, its sixth consecutive year of losses since it was rescued in 2008 and a result that chief executive Ross McEwan called “sobering”. The already slimmed down investment bank’s profits were down by more than half, but bankers there are no closer to knowing how many more jobs will go as RBS reduces its seven operating divisions down to three.

Indian state-owned oil company Bharat Petroleum sold its debut Swiss franc on Tuesday morning, the first deal in the currency from the country since 2012. Brazilian financial Banco Safra could follow with a Swiss deal of its own in the near future.

Suez Environnement raised €350m through a convertible bond on Monday, with investors leaping on the now rare opportunity to buy an investment grade equity-linked deal.

Italian bond yields hit lows last seen before the eurozone sovereign debt crisis began as a fresh political face in the form of Florence’s former mayor, Matteo Renzi put a sheen on peripheral sovereign bonds. But Renzi’s incoming government, which was still being formed as EuroWeek went to press, may face challenges almost immediately. The first weeks of the new government could be crucial for the sovereign’s borrowing as the Treasury has yet to syndicate its first bond of 2014, which could come as soon as March.

Russian Agricultural Bank took its July 2018 senior bonds to $1.3bn with a $500m increase on Tuesday, and priced the deal with a decent concession after attracting new buyers into the tap.