UK Sovereign

Santander has built on a strong showing in the European Central Bank’s comprehensive assessment with an impressive set of third quarter results, which included a big rise in earnings for its UK unit and investment bank.

Royal Dutch Shell, like most oil companies a dollar-based issuer, had already blessed the euro market with a €2bn issue this year, in March.

Ontex, the Belgian producer of disposable hygienic products for babies and adults, is beginning on Tuesday a roadshow in London for a €250m high yield bond, after completing its IPO in June.

Heathrow has signed a £2.15bn refinancing of its revolving credit and liquidity facilities with a syndicate of 22 banks. The loan comprises a £1.4bn revolving credit facility and a £750m standby liquidity facility.

Gruppo Sostenya’s subsidiary Waste Italia is hoping to issue its first bond late next week, once it has completed a roadshow that began on Monday in London with Jefferies as bookrunner.

HSBC’s third quarter profits and revenues were flat on last year's, as a punchy performance from the markets division was swallowed up by yet more conduct charges, including a $701m provision for payment protection insurance, a $550m US mortgage settlement, and a $378m provision against the Financial Conduct Authority’s foreign exchange investigation.

The Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee released its updated guidance on leverage ratio requirements on Friday afternoon. The new ratios look positive for the UK's largest lenders, being considerably less demanding than the worst case scenarios and with all but one of the country's global banks already meeting their requirements.

Intu Properties, the UK real estate investment trust, signed a £600m revolving credit facility on Friday. The five year loan carries a two year extension option.

Great Portland Estates (GPE) has signed a £450m revolving credit facility with a group of seven relationship banks to refinance two loans.

A weak performance from Royal Bank of Scotland’s repositioned investment bank, made worse by £400m of provisions set aside for an FX probe, has tarnished the state-owned lender’s third consecutive quarterly profit under new chief executive Ross McEwan.

China’s appetite for commodities and its rapid push for RMB internationalisation is resulting in an expansion of the offering for RMB-denominated commodities and derivatives products, such as the upcoming base metals mini futures contracts on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx)-owned London Metal Exchange (LME) and the September launch of the international board of the Shanghai Gold Exchange.

Syndicating a reopening of a 55 year bond in a month where sterling was shaken by volatility could have been tough for the UK Debt Management Office this week. But it passed the test with flying colours, attracting its largest book ever on an ultra-long syndication and breaking the 3% yield bogey for the first time.