UK

Asset managers are set to face bigger demands for equity funding later in the year, despite having already thrown billions at the market as companies attempted to survive the coronavirus pandemic. A source close to BlackRock said it had already committed $18bn-equivalent in equity funding to European companies during the crisis but inflows from US investors will help it and its peers buy into the deals to come.

Trading levels given are bid-side spreads versus mid-swaps and/or an underlying benchmark and bid-yields from the close of business on Monday, June 15. The source for secondary trading levels is ICE Data Services.

Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets seized the opportunity to raise senior funding in sterling on Tuesday, with the market back in 'extremely good shape' after several days of volatility. It is expected to be followed in the currency by Legal & General Group and Virgin Money, which have each announced strategic transactions this week.

Just as it did in and after 2008-2009, the financing burden of responding to 2020’s crisis has fallen squarely on the shoulders of governments. But there are essential differences between the crises, not least the speed and scale with which sovereign issuers have had to jump into the bond markets. In the UK, within six weeks, a full year’s public borrowing requirement of £156bn had multiplied into a four months’ requirement of £225bn. To put that into context, the UK Gilt market’s previous busiest year was 2009-2010, during which it raised £227.6bn.

Ninebot, an electric scooter producer backed by electronics giant Xiaomi Corp, has won approval to raise more than Rmb2bn ($282m) from listing China Depository Receipts on the Star board.

Shanghai-based China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co has launched its IPO on the London Stock Exchange, firming up the deal size and the syndicate group on the listing. The deal was covered on Friday, its first day of bookbuild.

Biffa, the UK waste management company, raised £100m in a sale of just under 50m new shares at £2 each to strengthen its balance sheet in order to take advantage of M&A opportunities.

Rating: Aa2/AA/AA-

Weaker trading conditions have done little to shake expectations for a new wave of additional tier one (AT1) supply, writes Tyler Davies, with three banks having reopened the market in emphatic fashion this week, issuing €3.1bn-equivalent of debt into more than €20bn of demand.

European investors are looking beyond the coronavirus crisis to put equity capital into companies that they believe can take advantage of its aftermath. However, as economies reopen after lockdown, the damage of the pandemic is becoming clearer, and companies are working hard to convince investors that they are the right horse to back.

Market participants re-examined the prospects for covered bond supply in sterling this week in the wake of two deals from SSA borrowers in the currency. Spreads have tightened and issuance conditions have improved but that will have to be balanced against bargain basement priced funding available from central banks, bankers said on Thursday.

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