UK

Quadgas, a gas asset and infrastructure investment consortium that sits above UK utility Cadent Gas, has sold $600m-equivalent of US private placements, in the first UK utility deal for more than six months.

UK biotech firm Synairgen has finished the second leg of an £87m capital increase to fund the next round of clinical trials of a treatment designed to alleviate the respiratory symptoms of Covid-19.

The London Borough of Sutton hit the market on Monday for £100m, opting to print the deal via European Primary Placement Facility (eppf), a digital bond issuance platform based in Luxembourg.

Fresh lockdown restrictions added to a sense of anxiety in Europe at the start of the week, with credit markets already on tenterhooks ahead of the US presidential election.

Brussels Airport is looking to sell US private placements, according to market sources. It is the first European airport to try its luck in the market since the coronavirus reached Europe.

A new fund focused on renewable energy infrastructure is preparing to brave US election volatility by launching a £200m ($260m) IPO on the London Stock Exchange.

Perenna has applied to become the first UK covered bond bank and plans to issue 30 year fixed rate mortgages next year, using the Danish covered bond system that limits mismatches between the terms of the mortgages and the bonds that fund them.

Sands Capital Management, the US investment manager, sold a 1.6% stake in Russian internet services company Mail.Ru on Monday despite a torrid evening for international stock markets.

PrimaryBid, a company that provides retail investors with a means to take part in primary equity capital raises, completed a $50m Series B financing round on Monday to expand its international business.

UK banks and building societies are struggling with difficult aspects of incorporating climate change into their risk management, as demanded by the regulator, a PwC survey has found. The answer to some of their problems could be a non-risk initiative: science-based targets.

Markets rejoiced this week after the Bank of England proposed policy changes that will make it harder for UK lenders to run into automatic restrictions on their additional tier one coupons and equity dividends. The move was seen as a way of addressing concern about ‘buffer usability’, which has come to the fore during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Prudential rules will become more supportive for UK banks after Brexit.