UK

NN Investment Partners has hired a senior convertible bonds investor for its London team.

The UK’s National Grid Electricity Transmission is set to make its debut green bond issue in euros, when it returns to the currency for the first time for more than a decade.

Atlantica Yield, formerly the UK-based energy yieldco Abengoa Yield, has launched a debut US private placement, which is the first US PP offering in 2020 in Europe.

Leeds Building Society opened books on Monday for its second Sonia-linked covered bond. The trade benefited from an ‘unparallelled’ level of demand, reaching almost four times its £600m size.

Nationwide Building Society issued the first sterling covered bond of the year on Friday, without needing to pay any premium over the tight trading levels of its existing bonds.

GlobalCapital has penned an open letter to UK prime minister Boris Johnson ahead of his negotiations next year on the UK's future relationship with the European Union.

Andrew Bailey is seen as a ‘safe pair of hands’ as the new governor of the Bank of England. But while he is a veteran of the bank, his views on monetary policy are not well known, as he has never served on the Monetary Policy Committee. In that respect, though a career central banker, he resembles Christine Lagarde, who has taken the helm at the European Central Bank.

Singapore-based aircraft leasing company Avation has obtained a green loan to support its purchase of aircraft.

The University of York has raised £160m ($209m) to fund student accommodation via US private placements, becoming the fourth university to enter the market this year.

The shine from last week’s Conservative Party win in the UK general election has worn off in the UK Gilts market, due, in part, to fears that the country may crash out the European Union without a trade deal in place.

Equity capital markets are fully firing again at the end of 2019, after a stressful year, but bankers hoping for a more fruitful 2020 are acutely conscious that most of their hopes are riding on the second quarter window, and that an ugly trinity of political risks is threatening the market. Sam Kerr reports.

As many as 15 to 20 UK local authorities are considering come to the US private placement market in the first half of 2020, according to three investors, after the UK Treasury decided in October to raise the cost it charges councils to borrow from the central government.