NatWest Markets

InterContinental Hotels Group has negotiated a waiver and relaxation on its loan covenants for the second time in 2020, as its leverage threatens to plunge its rating into junk territory.

Gaurav Arora has joined Credit Suisse to work in its emerging markets sales team.

The launch this week of the Climate Transition Finance Handbook has propelled the sustainable debt market towards a new era, in which the emphasis moves from a labelled security to the issuer itself, writes Jon Hay.

Santander UK completed the first consent solicitation for moving a sterling additional tier one note away from Libor to referencing Sonia on Thursday, setting a precedent for other banks to follow.

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena led a trio of speculative grade Italian banks into the euro bond market this week, as credit investors showed that no issuers were off limit in their increasingly desperate search for yield. Tyler Davies reports.

Sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) have hogged much of the limelight in the socially responsible investment markets this year. But transition bonds, which had fallen out of favour for some time, have demonstrated there is clear demand for the product, following a strong deal for Snam this week and guidelines due for release in the coming days, writes Mike Turner.

Sub-investment grade Italian lenders Banco BPM and Illimity Bank were well-supported in the euro bond market on Thursday, as investors showed they were more than happy to look at riskier names in their search for yield.

Kommunalbanken, the financing agency for Norwegian municipalities, and L–Bank, the development bank for the State of Baden–Württemberg, built well covered order books as they brought what will likely be the SSA market’s final dollar benchmark deals of 2020.

Italian SME lender Illimity Bank is getting ready to sell its first senior bond by asking investors what sort of a price they would want to pay for the single B rated paper.

The UK’s SSE Renewables and Norway’s Equinor, two energy companies, have signed what lenders say is the largest ever offshore wind project financing, a £5.5bn package for a wind farm off the UK coast.

Kommunalbanken and L-Bank will each bring a dollar benchmark to the market on Tuesday, in what could be the final public SSA deals in the currency this year.

Sub-benchmark deals are not so much of a novelty anymore: a trio of rare names filled their boots with diminutive deals this week, with each attracting bumper demand.