UK

German optical maker Jenoptik has launched a euro and dollar Schuldscheine with margins tied to its sustainability performance.

This week’s ground-breaking 10 year Sonia index-linked covered bond transaction from Nationwide is most likely to appeal to other UK Building Societies, as opposed to the large UK commercial banks who have a larger proportion of suitable assets to access central bank funding.

Two factors bear outsized influence on capital markets — Covid-19 and central bank stimulus. But the temptation to see these powerful forces culminating in one of two extreme outcomes — another crash as a feeble economy flounders, or a boom like the 1920s US — must be resisted.

If companies rushing to raise equity capital defined last year’s spring, what about this year’s March and April? Well, they could prove to be just as busy — for different, and more positive reasons. This year, companies are looking to raise capital from buoyant investors as they take advantage of the effect of Covid-19 vaccines and the reopening of economies. Aidan Gregory and Sam Kerr report.

HSBC Asset Management has partnered with HSBC UK to launch a direct lending platform, targeting smaller and mid-cap corporates.

The momentum behind green equity capital markets built further this week in the UK, with the latest deal from Greencoat UK Wind and the opening of books on the London flotation of NextEnergy Renewables, the solar power company.

Two sizeable block trades priced on Tuesday evening demonstrated appetite for sell-downs after several quite weeks while companies were in earnings blackouts. Bankers expect more sales in the next few weeks as bullish equity investors line up to take on risk.

TP ICAP, the interdealer broker, received strong demand from its shareholders for its £315m rights issue to part-fund the acquisition of Liquidnet.

US private placement agents have struggled to attract their typical stable of well rated corporates to their market this year. Public bond markets have proven too cheap for PP funding to compete and the European wing of the market has suffered as a consequence. But instead of waiting for the scales to tip back, agents should find new European borrowers from the financial institutions sector.

Nationwide Building Society has become the first borrower to issue a 10 year deal linked to the Bank of England’s Sonia index. The covered bond, which was issued on Tuesday with a highly oversubscribed order book, provided Nationwide with its cheapest ever funding and will be closely watched by other issuers looking to make similar deals.

Real estate is set to continue to be a key source of equity capital markets issuance in EMEA over the coming months as companies navigate the economic reopening driven by the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines according to sources speaking to GlobalCapital.

Will Adderley, the deputy chairman of home goods and furnishing company Dunelm, has sold a 15m share stake in the company raising £192m.