Pre-migration untagged articles

Senior unsecured sprang to life on Wednesday, a day after one banker had said the market was as quiet as Christmas. Banco Espirito Santo produced the unfamiliar sight of a Portuguese bank opening a three year deal at 6.25% through leads Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and UBS — the first public Portuguese bank deal since before the country’s bail-out.

The momentum allowing strong credits to pull off aggressive leveraged loan deals shows no signs of easing off.

The huge number of new bond issues priced in October has had a knock-on effect in the secondary market this week, with Finansbank’s $350m five year note trading down around half a point.

The decision by UBS to pull out of the SSA business is a warning signal to issuers that they must change their ways. There are short term benefits to resisting such change, but a failure to adapt to the new reality will be disastrous in the long term.

UBS swung the axe at its SSA business on Tuesday morning, doing so with little warning and in brutal fashion. At least four SSA bankers were made redundant from the Swiss firm’s debt capital markets desk with people also leaving trading, syndicate and research.

UBS’s decision to shut its SSA business could have big repercussions for the entire SSA market beyond the disappearance of a top five firm from the business, said senior bankers. They fear for the health and future of the market now that one of its traditional big dogs has walked away from what had once been a core business.

SSA borrowers mourned the demise of UBS’s SSA franchise on Tuesday, blaming the Swiss banking regulator's tough approach to the treatment of derivatives for the exit from the market of one of its traditional heavyweights. But they were circumspect about the possibility of other firms following suit, striking a contrast with SSA bankers at other firms who have expressed fears over the repercussions of UBS's decision (see separate story).

Sergio Ermotti, CEO of UBS, on Tuesday announced the second wave of his restructuring of the firm's investment bank, laying out plans to reduce staffing by 10,000 by 2015 by exiting businesses that were no longer economical.
Those businesses are mostly contained to elements of the fixed income franchise, and include the prestige SSA business. The investment bank has taken a Sfr3bn hit in the third quarter results, largely as a result of the restructuring.

Babson Capital Management has completed the initial public offering of its global short duration high yield fund. It began trading on the New York stock exchange on Friday.

Prudential Investments, part of Prudential Financial of the US, launched a new short duration high yield mutual fund, in the latest launch in the sub-sector.

The Kingdom of Spain’s funding plans for 2013 could be in disarray even before the year begins, with market participants this week questioning the ability of the country’s regions to fund themselves and calling for the sovereign to accept a bailout programme sooner rather than later.

Dealers of private EMTNs: Non-syndicated deals for <= €300m excluding financial repackaged SPVs, GSE issuers, self-led deals and issues with a term of < 365 days