Sweden

Swedbank and Swedish Covered Bond Corporation rapidly attracted solid oversubscriptions for their €1bn five and seven year covered bonds that were priced with a minimal concession on Monday.

The Swedish Covered Bond Corporation mandated leads for a euro covered bond benchmark as market participants prepare for another hectic week, following a substantial curve steepening this week.

Volvo Cars, the Swedish car company owned by Zhejiang Geely Holding of China, has raised Skr5bn ($530m) in a private placement of preference shares, which might be converted to listed shares if Volvo completes an IPO.

Nasdaq Clearing and Nasdaq Stockholm have both received fines after an investigation in Sweden found risk management and cyber security flaws.

The leveraged finance market should not view direct lending as competition but instead as a complementary funding source, said a direct lending official speaking at the Euromoney Nordic high yield conference in Stockholm this week.

Högkullen, the Swedish social housing company, has cancelled its Stockholm IPO after receiving a bid from Samhällsbyggnadsbolaget (SBB).

The busy equity block trade action in Europe since the US election has continued into its third week, though market participants are beginning to brace for the outcome of the Italian referendum on Sunday.

In a volatile year for European equity capital markets, with issuance down sharply, the Nordic region has been a bright spot, enjoying its second biggest ever year for issuance. Bankers believe that momentum will carry into 2017.

Swedbank became the third non-UK issuer to launch a sterling covered bond since September, when it launched a rare five year on Wednesday. The high number of UK bank sterling redemptions that are unlikely to be refinanced next year suggests sterling investors will be cash rich and receptive to similar supply.

The busy equity block trade action, widely predicted by ECM bankers when the US presidential election produced a bounce in share prices, has continued this week with a string of sales totalling over $1.5bn.

One of the last two substantial European IPOs of 2016 looks set to be completed on Friday, when RussNeft, one of Russia’s 10 largest oil companies, floats in Moscow for at least $495m.

Shares in Dometic Group, the Swedish company that makes fridges and freezers for boats and camper vans, fell 3.6% on Tuesday morning after EQT has sold the last of its shares in the company, through an accelerated bookbuild that was covered in half an hour.