UK

Hotel Chocolat, the UK chocolatier and retailer, sold 9.77m new shares after revealing that its revenues in March have been damaged by the Covid-19 coronavirus; the company hopes the capital will give it flexibility in the weeks and months ahead. More UK SMEs will no doubt follow it to market over the next few weeks.

International banks are at risk of depleting their capital reserves as they try to keep credit flowing to companies through the coronavirus crisis. Governments and regulators have already responded, but the sector is screaming out for more work to be done to ease the burden of complying with stringent accounting and supervisory rules, reports Tyler Davies.

After an extraordinary Monetary Policy Committee meeting on Thursday, the Bank of England voted to drop the base rate by an additional 15bp to bring it to a new low of 0.1%. Alongside this cut, the central bank has announced it will up its holdings of government and corporate debt by £200bn. Initial signs in the bond makrets were positive.

The promises of economic support for economies battered by coronavirus from the UK and US governments have caused their curves to cheapen sharply, driving up borrowing costs.

Eurozone government bond yields jumped higher early on Wednesday morning, unmoved by reports of a potential breakthrough for the issuance of common EU debt instruments. The European Central Bank is suspected to have stepped in to try and control the situation, with spreads to Bunds having moved to their widest points for a year or more.

UK manufacturer Dyson is looking for at least £250m of debt, according to several market sources, in a private placement set to close in the middle of the pandemic that has largely shut public markets in Europe and the US.

HSBC’s hunt for a group chief executive has ended where it began, with the bank appointing interim boss Noel Quinn on a permanent basis.

During consultations with Gilt-edged Market Makers (GEMMs) and Gilt investors on Monday, there was a preference for the UK Debt Management Office to reopen its 1.875% 2054 Gilt in mid-May for the first syndication of its 2020/21 financial year.

Three institutional investors pulled out of a private placement for London's Heathrow airport according to market sources, amid pricing volatility due to Covid-19 and as airports take stock of how much the virus will impact their businesses.

The crash in share prices as the coronavirus pandemic has gathered pace is soon likely going to force some sellers to execute equity block trades to cover loans secured against stock, or just to access capital quickly. But these sellers are going to have to stomach heavy discounts to get the liquidity required to execute trades, as one company proved on Monday night.

Central banks are dusting off the 2008 playbook, thrusting liquidity at the banking system and hoping some of it gets through to banks' end clients. It’s better than nothing, but the coronavirus crisis one primarily of corporates — and the rescue toolkit needs updating.

Private debt funds in Europe may be the hot new thing to some in capital markets but they could be about to come of age, having never been through a serious credit downturn before. The market is under scrutiny over how it will cope with the credit ramifications of Covid-19.