UBS

The leveraged finance market suffered an unpleasant shock this week, when $5.6bn of loans and bonds for the Carlyle Group’s acquisition of Veritas Software had to be pulled. Bankers were left blaming market sentiment, an aggressive structure — and each other, write Max Bower and Victor Jimenez.

A trio of issuers from Finland and Sweden raised €3.5bn of funding in the covered bond market this week with strong receptions and limited spread concessions.

Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) issued a €1bn 10 year Obbligazioni Bancarie Garantite (OBG) this week. The deal came with a 2.125% coupon, the highest of any covered bond sold this year.

Russia bonds burst back to the top of the emerging market priority list without a sanction being lifted after Alfa Bank smashed through its own yield curve on Wednesday. Demand is rampant among supply-starved investors who will be gleeful about the thawing of the geopolitical frost between Russia and the west, writes Francesca Young.

Alfa Bank’s print of $500m 5% 2018s on Wednesday, which smashed 25bp through its own curve, demonstrated how big investor demand for Russian credit has become as the geopolitical frost begins to thaw.

Allied Irish Banks was in a generous mood on Thursday, launching its first tier two since the crisis at a much higher premium than rival bankers thought necessary.

UBS is planning to swap senior members of its China onshore and offshore teams as it looks to further strengthen its mainland business, according to an internal memo seen by GlobalCapital Asia.

Bank of East Asia (BEA) has set the minimum coupon of its upcoming additional tier one issue at 5.5%, according to an announcement by the Hong Kong lender on November 18.

Bankers and investors on Wednesday said the failure of Veritas Technologies' $2.5bn bond deal — which was pulled along with an accompanying $3.3bn loan package on Tuesday — showed evidence of familiar weaknesses and errors in the European high yield market.

The order book for Russian Alfa Bank’s first senior unsecured bond in three years has reached $2.75bn, and guidance for the three year note has been crunched to 5.125% area.

The weakness of the US leveraged finance market was brought home to market participants with a jolt on Tuesday, when the Carlyle Group, which is buying Veritas Technologies, a US data storage company, abandoned its attempt to raise $3.3bn of debt for the deal.

Pfandbriefbank, the Swiss mortgage lender, raised Sfr754m ($748m) in a four tranche bond on Tuesday, drawing a strong demand from insurance investors in the Swiss domestic market.