Pre-migration untagged articles

KfW had the niche currency markets to itself this week, and tapped the Norwegian krone and Australian dollar markets.

NYSE Euronext has launched a high speed trading platform, NYSE Arca Europe, to further diversify its business. NYSE Euronext also said it will again lower the transaction fees on its regulated market cut last August.

Rabobank sold a record-breaking Eu1.5bn two year quarterly puttable FRN via Natixis last Thursday (March 5).

Roche raised Sfr4bn in a six month deal on Monday, only days after selling a Sfr4bn dual tranche bond last week that was the biggest ever deal in Swiss francs.

Standard & Poor’s last Friday (March 6) cut the rating of Caja Madrid’s cédulas hipotecarias from AAA to AA, in what is believed to be its first ever downgrade of a covered bond.

The Bank of England’s Asset Purchase Facility bought more commercial paper last week than in any previous week, figures released on Friday show. In its fourth week, to 12 March, the fund bought £561m of CP, taking its total holding to £1.546bn. In the first three weeks it bought £340m, £480m and £164m respectively. Dealers had noticed the increased use of the facility and participation looks set to continue rising as more companies, as well as banks, achieve eligibility.

EuroWeek is pleased to report that contrition has found its way into the financial pages.

EuroWeek understands that the debt capital market operations of Merrill Lynch’s much vaunted financial institutions silo — seen by many as a bank within a bank — is to be folded into the debt capital markets business. The advisory side of the business will remain separate.

Dealers of private EMTNs: Non-syndicated deals for less than $250m excluding financial repackaged SPVs, self-led deals and issues with a term of less than 365 days.

Rating agency Moody’s changed the outlook of Standard Bank’s financial strength to negative after Standard agreed to buy a stake in Russian brokerage Troika Dialogue last week.