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Opposition supporters were rejoicing in Venezuela this week after their greatest electoral victory over Chavismo, but the bond market’s reaction was muted as oil plummeted to nearly seven year lows and the scale of the political and economic challenges that lie ahead loomed large.

Abengoa will come under further scrutiny from ISDA’s Determinations Committee on Friday, only days after the Spanish renewable energy company narrowly avoided triggering a bankruptcy credit event for most credit default swaps.

Russian steel company Evraz raised $750m from a bond that was printed tight to secondary levels on Thursday as it benefited from huge pent up demand for Russian corporate paper, even in a volatile market for metals and mining firms.

At this time of year, attention in the equity capital market is divided between avidly fighting for next year’s mandates, which are beginning to mount up — and counting the spoils from this year. Has it been a good, bad or indifferent year — and for whom?

German agency KfW will take the sustainability criteria of banks into account when they pitch for its green bond business — a move that could ensure the growing SRI market keeps true to its founding principles. But as Craig McGlashan reports, the decision could also slash the number of banks involved in the sector, which has been one of the few bright spots in the public sector bond markets this year.

With SSA investors increasingly muscling in on CEE bonds, a small number of banks have transferred execution for these sovereigns to their SSA syndicates. But a GlobalCapital poll showed that most banks have not yet done so and may not for some time, despite their spreads, already converging with the SSA market, having been shoved closer still by European quantitative easing.

Despite a big sell-off following the European Central Bank’s meeting on December 3, several large supranationals have increased their funding plans for next year and January is expected to be a spectacularly busy month as issuers get down to business.

Any bankers who had written off December for corporate bond issuance were forced to eat their words on Wednesday, when Vonovia, the German housing company, issued a €3bn deal to finance its hostile takeover bid for Deutsche Wohnen, and won a book of over €7bn.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission will meet on Friday and is expected to propose tough restrictions on the use of derivatives in funds sold to retail investors.

Standard Chartered and Lonmin will each begin a new chapter in their stories on Friday, as results are published of their rights issues, books for which closed on Thursday.

Santander UK has beaten a path that could become well trodden by European banks in the next two years, printing a holdco senior unsecured deal in the Tokyo Pro-Bond market as it looks to broaden its investor base for issuing loss absorbing debt.

Lloyds Bank's shares rose over 2% on Thursday after the Court of Appeal ruled a series of high coupon enhanced capital notes (ECNs) sold to retail investors in 2009 had become useless for future UK stress tests and could be called at par.