UK Sovereign

The Bank of England will steer banks and insurers to think seriously about climate change. This is great news in itself. But what will count is how far the Bank is willing to push them.

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The UK Debut Management Office is planning to issue an inflation linked syndication early next year, after completing its conventional syndicated programme this week with a reopener of its 2071 Gilt.

There are more than $512bn worth of bonds that will need to switch to an alternative reference rate if global regulators execute plans to ditch the Libor benchmark by the end of 2021, Linklaters said on Wednesday. GlobalCapital asked the law firm what needs to happen for a successful switchover.

The UK Debt Management Office won big demand for a reopeing of its longest outstanding bond on Tuesday, with a final order book that was over five times covered.

UK local authorities could turn to the capital markets to fund council housing development after the prime minister Theresa May announced plans to scrap a long-standing cap on borrowing, writes Silas Brown.

UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) chair Charles Randell invoked ancient Greek mythology during a speech on Tuesday in which he said that the FCA did not see Brexit as an “opportunity to join a race to the bottom in regulatory standards”.

Mizuho has hired Mark Currie from Deutsche Bank as head of sterling rates trading.

Koos Timmermans, the outgoing chief financial officer of Dutch bank ING, will be stepping down from his role as the chairman of the working group on euro risk-free rates, according to a European Central Bank (ECB) spokesperson.

GlobalCapital announced the winners of its Sustainable and Responsible Capital Markets Awards 2018 in Amsterdam on Tuesday evening. This year’s two sovereign debut green finance issues, from Indonesia and Belgium, won Deals of the Year in their regions, and there were double laurels for Danone, in both the bond and loan markets.

Barkis was willing, so David Copperfield related to us in Dickens’ famous novel. Now, it appears, Mark Carney is, too. And like the fictional stagecoach driver, Carney has been just as frustratingly enigmatic, at least to some in the markets. But his declaration on Tuesday that he was “willing” to stay on as governor of the Bank of England until 2020 should help market stability in the face of Brexit.

There is little demand for another public sector issue referenced to Sonia, the preferred alternative to sterling Libor, in the wake of the European Investment Bank's successful deal in June, a senior SSA portfolio manager said this week.