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All3Media, a subsidiary of Liberty Global and Discovery, which makes TV shows including ‘Fleabag’, ‘Call the Midwife’ and ‘Peep Show’, is in the market with a term loan B to refinance debt.

Private debt and loans bankers are trying to work out possible approaches to the City of London Corporation’s plans to return to capital markets for the first time in a generation when it looks to raise around £1.75bn ($2.24bn) over the next three years, writes Mike Turner.

Emerging market loan volumes continue to suffer with year-to-date volumes down 60% from the same period in 2018. Global economic slowdown and the fear of trade wars, combined with the increasing appeal of the bond market, are dampening the prospects of recovery in the syndicated loan market in 2019.

Global equity markets suffered their worst days of the year this week after an apparent breakdown in trade talks between the US and China, causing investors to sell and volatility to spike and possibly wrecking equity issuance plans, write Sam Kerr and Ross Lancaster.

It should not have been a good week for CEEMEA bonds. Fears of an escalating trade war between the US and China, a re-run of mayoral elections in Istanbul that many are calling the end of democracy in Turkey, South Africa national elections and the spectre of US sanctions on Russia would normally have killed the primary market. But issuers kept on printing and bonds rallied, writes Francesca Young, with next week's pipeline filling up.

UniCredit’s chief executive, Jean Pierre Mustier, moved fast this week to sell €1bn of stock in FinecoBank, the Italian bank’s online brokerage, after a decision to deconsolidate the unit. Many in the market see UniCredit's accelerating asset sales as an effort to boost its capital position before exploring M&A opportunities in 2020. Aidan Gregory reports.

The European Investment Bank is preparing to launch a new entity — potentially called the European Bank for Sustainable Development — that will focus on sustainable projects outside the EU, GlobalCapital understands.

France and Germany have proposed to extend France’s model for a financial transactions tax (FTT) to all EU countries willing to participate, allocating the revenues to the EU’s budget, according to a Franco-German document seen by GlobalCapital.

Ireland appointed banks on Tuesday for its second syndicated bond of the year, which will extend its euro benchmark curve to 2050 (31 years).

Equity capital markets bankers are pitching aggressively for any new business they can get, often disregarding issuer region or the size of the deal, to make up for the dearth of supply so far in 2019.

Financial officials of all the EU governments are meeting in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss whether to broaden the Taxonomy at the heart of the union’s Sustainable Finance Action Plan (SFAP). Some states, led by France, want it to be not just a label for the “green niche” but a guide to wider efforts towards a healthier economy.

The high costs of bidding for the next generation of mobile technology is pushing telecoms firms, many of which operate with leveraged capital structures, to sharpen their balance sheets through asset sales and paying down debt. Mobile moguls like Patrice Drahi, Xavier Niel and John Malone are all taking steps to optimise their empires. Owen Sanderson reports.