UK

The UK government’s steps to reopen its economy are proving a boon for Whitbread, the parent of Premier Inn and Beefeater Restaurants, which is set to complete a £1bn rights issue on Wednesday.

The surprising rise in global stock markets continued last week with a strong rally on Friday after US job figures were better than expected. The resilience of secondary equity markets, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, is a boost for those lining up equity block sales.

Stobart, the UK infrastructure and aviation company which owns London Southend airport and was a part owner of UK airline FlyBe, won wide support from equity markets on Thursday evening, giving the company the funds to manage through the coronavirus pandemic.

Rating agency Scope beat many European agencies to the punch in adopting new covered bond rating methodology in 2015, which is today considered a standard approach. But the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) is fining the agency on the grounds that it failed to apply it consistently and with the regulator’s permission.

Many felt that Chinese banks, key investors in Schuldscheine, would pull back from the market as the pandemic hit. This has been far from the case.

Dechra Pharmacuticals, the pharmaceutical company focused on pets, raised £134m in an accelerated placing on Wednesday night to strengthen its balance sheet after an M&A wave and to give it headroom for further growth and to protect against the economic headwinds of the coronavirus pandemic.

Barclays was positively surprised at how quickly capital markets reopened and it wasted little time issuing senior and tier two deals while its treasury team were still working from home. The UK lender is likely to use the Bank of England's Term Funding for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (TFSME) facility, which will lower its secured funding needs. The bank was well capitalised going into the crisis and has buttressed itself against the expected tide of credit impairments with a prudent level of provisioning.

Standard Chartered sold its first capital instrument in euros since 2014 this week, clocking up a considerable 40bp saving versus the dollar market. The deal adds to a recent flurry of tier two supply from European banks.

Samruk-Kazyna, the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund, raised $206.7m on Tuesday night through a share placing in Kazatomprom, the country’s state uranium company. Emerging markets investors, who have been lacking new paper during the coronavirus crisis, lapped up the shares.

China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co has won approval from the mainland securities regulator to move ahead with its stock offering on the London Stock Exchange.

Adaptimmune Therapeutics, the New York-listed UK biopharmaceutical company focused on cancer treatments, has raised $225m to fund further clinical trials for its immunotherapy treatments.

Credit Suisse launched its first sterling bonds of the year on Tuesday, moving to within touching distance of completing its annual issuance plan for its total loss absorbing capacity requirements (TLAC).