UK

The City of London Corporation, via its endowment fund the City’s Cash, is set to enter the US private placement market for the first time. While UK councils are still a rare sight in the US PP market, agents believe they may be a fruitful asset class for the future. Silas Brown reports.

Toronto Dominion Bank has become only the second borrower from outside of the UK to sell a Sonia-linked covered bond, having quickly met enough orders on Monday to launch a £1bn offering in the sterling market.

Shares in Huatai Securities, the Chinese brokerage, rose as much as 12% on Monday morning after the company’s global depositary receipts began trading in London via the London-Shanghai Stock Connect programme.

Huatai Securities, the Chinese brokerage, has set a price for the sale of global depositary receipts on the London Stock Exchange, the first deal under the new London-Shanghai Connect programme.

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UK banks jumped back into the bond market this week, enjoying good demand for their funding and capital products. But with the country’s financial institutions having loaded up heavily on debt already, and with political instability causing near constant volatility within the sector, some market participants wonder whether investors have had all the UK FIG bonds they can stand. Tyler Davies and Bill Thornhill report.

Coventry Building Society did well to raise €500m of seven year funding with demand of €1bn on Thursday, but bankers warned that investors are close to reaching their limits on UK exposure, and the next issuer cannot expect the same result.

Marks & Spencer has completed its £601m equity capital raising to fund a transformational join-venture with Ocado, following a rights issue and rump share placement

Lloyds Banking Group found room to tighten pricing by 50bp for a new additional tier one (AT1) this week, though investors are having to second guess what a new prime minister in the UK might mean for the country’s approach to Brexit. At the same time Barclays added to its recent activity in the subordinated bond market, opening books on a tier two on Thursday.

Electrocomponents, an industrial and electronics distributor headquartered in London, has entered the US private placement market to refinance existing notes, according to sources in the market.

The long-awaited London-Shanghai Stock Connect faced its first test this week as Huatai Securities went on the road with its sale of global depository receipts (GDRs) on the London Stock Exchange. More issuers could follow as mainland investors hunt for opportunities to use their offshore capital, said market participants. Jonathan Breen and Aidan Gregory report.

It took just over two hours on Wednesday morning for the IPO of Trainline, the UK transport booking website, to get covered after the company opened the books on its £630m IPO on the London Stock Exchange.