RBC Capital Markets

Council of Europe Development Bank launched its largest ever sterling trade on Thursday, selling its first trade in the currency in over 18 months in what is proving an enormously supportive market.

A mid-market shake-out is under way in UK corporate broking as global banks and smaller rivals jostle for supremacy, writes David Rothnie.

The marketing of French oil company Total’s £250m seven year bond issue on Tuesday was the second attempt in recent months to reconfigure the way investors are sold bond deals. The first attempt by Vodafone, in July, struggled to gain support euro investors. However, the response to the Total deal suggests that approach could be replicated, at least in sterling. Nigel Owen reports.

On Wednesday, Spanish electricity utility Iberdrola became the third corporate issuer in a week to print a green bond in euros. The €750m 10 year deal took the total corporate green bonds issued since the summer break to €1.95bn.

Public sector borrowers are finding healthy seams of sterling funding in various tenors, as Council of Europe Development Bank lined up to follow a Wednesday trade by KfW — and there are rumours that more supranationals could consider deals in the currency. Attractive arbitrage levels and large redemptions are helping drive supply and demand respectively, said bankers.

Tuesday’s £250m seven year bond issue from French oil company Total looked like a straightforward small benchmark sterling deal for a regular issuer. However, the marketing process for the deal marked a change from the normal approach and it is something investors are keen to see more of.

Monday’s combination of heightened worries over North Korea and the Labor Day holiday in the US saw only one new issue in the European corporate bond market. However, with no new developments from the Korean peninsula overnight, five issuers decided to push ahead with trades on Tuesday.

Europe’s IPO market gained two more deals of very different flavours on Tuesday when Rovio, the Finnish developer of the Angry Birds mobile phone game, and Charter Court Financial Services, the UK specialist mortgage lender, both filed intention to float documents.

Six corporate investment grade borrowers took home a combined $3.75bn as the US dollar market finally took a breather for the summer after the breakneck pace of issuance for the month so far.

Third quarter profits in Royal Bank of Canada’s capital markets business fell by 4% on Wednesday, a C$24m drop that the bank attributed to benign market conditions and low volatility.

Andrea Jelic, public sector DCM at HSBC, is set to move banks, GlobalCapital understands.

Canadian SEC-registered covered bond borrowers are expected to switch back to issuing under 144A/Reg S documentation after amendments to an existing regulation made SEC registration more onerous.