UK

WH Smith, the UK retailer, raised £155m of equity capital in a block trade on Thursday morning in order to acquire US firm Marshall Retail Group.

Nationwide Building Society announced a consent solicitation on Wednesday with plans to convert two floating rate covered bonds to pay coupons based on Sonia rather than Libor, and is considering doing the same on all of its Libor-based bonds. The UK issuer followed Lloyds, which won plaudits from Moody’s for undertaking a similar exercise on a covered bond earlier this month.

Citigroup launched a senior unsecured bond in the sterling market on Wednesday, just as the UK government appeared to be making some progress over its Brexit deal with the EU.

The astonishing rally in UK domestic equities in the past week as a Brexit deal with the EU started to look more likely showed how important an orderly exit from the bloc is to the market. If there is more progress towards a deal this week, the little loved sector could be primed for a resurgence in capital markets.

Institutional investors from the US have been lending to German borrowers using the Namensschuldverschreibungen (NSV) — a non-callable registered instrument that is, unlike the Schuldschein, non-cancellable after 10 years. But some are sceptical of their involvement in the market, as they are of US lenders participating in the Schuldschein market.

DNEG, the UK-based motion picture visual effects company that has worked on blockbuster hits like the Avengers and Harry Potter franchises, has filed initial paperwork to list in London.

Shares in Helios Towers, the African telecommunications infrastructure company backed by George Soros and Madeleine Albright, rose as much as 4.3% following their debut on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning, despite a jittery market that has seen numerous IPOs pulled or trading below their offer prices.

Covenant erosion and the lack of disclosure worried market participants at Afme’s Annual European High Yield Conference in London on Wednesday. While investors are ever better educated and organised, the hunt for yield is driving them to accept aggressive documentation.

RTW investments, the US-based life sciences and pharmaceutical investment company, is seeking to list a new vehicle fund on the specialist fund segment of the London Stock Exchange.

Bureau Veritas, the unrated certification agency headquartered in Paris, has entered the US private placement, according to market participants.

Infrastructure investment business 3i Infrastructure (3iN), which is controlled by private equity firm 3i Group, managed to buck Brexit volatility and place 81m new shares into the market, to fund the pay down of a revolving credit facility linked to acquisition financing.

The buyout bonds for Merlin Entertainments and Kantar, backed by Blackstone and Bain, will set new standards for European issuers. If the investors strike down the "net short" clauses — as they did in an earlier Inmarsat deal — the sponsors may give up on the controversial strategy to battle hedge funds with large CDS positions.