UK

Elite Commercial Real Estate Investment Trust has opened books for an IPO that could raise up to £130.7m ($169.7m), according to a source familiar with the matter.

Lancashire County Council looks set to become the first borrower to make use of the UK Municipal Bonds Agency, preparing a deal to hit the market in the next few weeks. A second bond from the MBA is set to follow in March or April.

The UK Debt Management Office has chosen the week for its fifth and final syndication of its 2019/2020 financial year.

Nationwide Building Society launched a three year preferred senior bond in sterling on Friday, with the trade’s success coming as 'no surprise' amid a favourable backdrop in the currency.

Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) is set to become the first issuer of green non-preferred senior paper in the sterling bond market, as well as the first financial institution to include sustainability ratings in a new deal mandate.

Calisen Group, the KKR-backed operator of smart meters, has confirmed its intention to float on the London Stock Exchange, formally launching the first major UK IPO of the year.

UK chemicals giant Ineos’s German styrenics subsidiary is marketing €500m of senior secured notes and a €680m equivalent term loan B, with an intention to issue a €300m dividend to its parent company, controlled by billionaire Jim Ratcliffe. The remaining proceeds will be used for refinancing all of its term loans and some of the upcoming investments.

UK private placement advisers and agents are keen to speak to North American investors about their appetite for debt from UK local governments, seen by many as the next source of growth for PPs in Europe after the central government raised the rate at which it lends to them.

Capital Group, one of the largest asset managers in the US, bought 13.45m shares in NMC Health on January 8, according to a disclosure on the London Stock Exchange. They were worth about £160m. That was the day after a £375m block trade by Saeed Al Qebaisi and Khaleefa Al Muhairi, two of the three controlling shareholders in the UAE health company, which faced criticism from short-seller Muddy Waters of its balance sheet and financial statements in December.

JP Morgan and MUFG have been appointed Everton FC’s financial advisers to arrange roughly £500m ($651m) of financing for the football club’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock in Liverpool. One source close to the prospective deal told GlobalCapital “all options are on the table” regarding funding routes.

Houlihan Lokey, the US boutique investment bank, has the ambition to become a serious player in the European ECM advisory market after hiring an MD from Rothschild.

Navigating the covered bond market will not be without its challenges in 2020. The Targeted Longer Term Refinancing Operation (TLTRO), European Central Bank deposit tiering and the Covered Bond Purchase Programme have collectively distorted the market, but added to this concoction is the impact of negative interest rates. Against this backdrop issuers, investors and investment bankers gathered in Munich in November to discuss the outlook for covered bonds. It is likely that new issue premiums will gradually tighten, but the path is unlikely to be smooth. January is typically the busiest month, but in 2019, issuers that funded this early paid the highest spreads. And, with the ECB expected to buy in the region of €4.5bn covered bonds a month, issuers will not feel compelled to move early. But the ECB monetary policy has unwelcome implications. Covered bonds have begun to lose value against government bonds, and this will extend if the ECB is unable to loosen restrictions on government bond purchases.