UK

New issue premiums have been widening somewhat in Europe's corporate bond market in recent weeks, but Accent, a UK housing association, priced its debut bond at a level bankers said was tighter than where comparable issuers were trading.

Swiss Re is blaming weak investor demand for it postponing the £793m IPO of ReAssure, its UK closed book life insurance division.

The UK Debt Management Office (DMO) issued its 60th syndicated bond on Tuesday and signalled a “smooth” start to the second quarter of its 2019–20 financial year, as it printed an inflation-linked tap that was eight times oversubscribed.

Barclays’ ex-head of EMEA FIG syndicate John Wright has started a new job at Standard & Poor as financial institutions credit analyst.

In this round-up, US and China will resume trade talks next week, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley near 51% stakes in their Chinese joint ventures (JVs), and China’s foreign minister offered a strong-worded rebuttal to the UK’s stand on Hong Kong protests.

Lloyds made its first public sale of debt from its non-ringfenced bank on Thursday, pricing the senior bonds about 16bp tighter than similar instruments from the group’s holding company.

Chris Jones, head of local currency syndicate at HSBC, has been put at risk of redundancy by the bank.

Prudential's deal was nearly 18 times subscribed on Thursday for an attractively priced tier two, which had an unusual 30 year non-call five maturity structure.

The EMEA IPO market has performed solidly in the first half of 2019, with high growth propositions in particular outperforming. Nevertheless, with disparate year-to-date returns between offerings and geopolitical tensions likely to surface in the autumn, sellers will act with heightened caution when the market reopens in September, writes Sam Kerr.

After disappointing trading in Airtel Africa, Traton and Global Fashion, there is hope that ReAssure, the UK life insurer, will fare better when it prices its £793m IPO on the London Stock Exchange on July 11.

Energean Oil and Gas, the Greek exploration company listed on the London Stock Exchange, won strong investor support on Thursday morning for a transaction backing a new M&A deal.

UK train leasing firm Porterbrook has sent out requests for proposals to US private placement agents, for a prospective return to the market.