UK

Some small UK housing associations are preparing to launch private placements, breathing life into the product after a month of next to no deal flow.

JD Sports, the UK sporting equipment retailer, is looking at the possibility of raising equity capital to help it through the next few months of Covid-19 lockdowns and to take advantage of investment opportunities in the future.

Moonpig, the online greetings card company, has set a price range on its IPO, which values the company at almost £1.2bn at the top of the range.

A cross-party group of UK members of Parliament has written to Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, calling on the Bank to start greening its quantitative easing and Covid support programmes.

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Mark Soriano joins Natixis — Deutsche's Frazer Ross is taking a sabbatical — Fidelity hires private credit team

Companies are increasingly turning to cornerstone and anchor investors to support their IPOs across the price range before deals are launched. While the phenomenon is common in Asia and the Nordic markets, it has been rarer in UK and most continental European deals until now, but the trend is turning into the norm, reports Sam Kerr.

Two Russian gold miners are among a number of Russian companies looking at listing possibilities in 2021 capitalising on a strong 2020 for the precious metal.

Hipgnosis Songs Fund, the London-listed investment fund focused on music royalties, is embarking on yet another share sale to finance its bulging pipeline of acquisitions.

JD Wetherspoon, the UK pub chain, tapped equity investors for £93.7m ($128m) on Tuesday to help see it through the country’s third Covid-19 lockdown. The company is likely to be the first of a number of issuers that seek to raise primary equity capital in the next few months in order to manage the disruption, according to senior equity market sources.

The UK Debt Management Office launched a new 25 year line on Tuesday, raising £6.5bn. The DMO also published the minutes of its call with investors and Gilt-edged Market Makers on Monday, revealing strong appetite for inflation-linked products.

Levels of asset encumbrance increased sharply in the first half of 2020, the European Banking Authority said in a report this week. It warned that roughly half of the assets eligible as collateral for central bank funding schemes are now encumbered.