UK

A cluster of large pan-African companies are exploring listings on the London Stock Exchange, but many have delayed their plans because of political risk in both Africa and the UK.

Four new corporate bonds hit the market on Wednesday. In a change from recent days, all the deals were of moderate size and single tranched. Terna, the Italian grid operator, and Banque PSA France were typical in launching €500m no-grow deals. Book sizes diverged strongly, with those two issuers getting heavy oversubscription, while Aroundtown and Voestalpine had much less.

Foreign & Colonial (F&C) Investment Trust has sold a £150m equivalent US private placement, in euros and sterling, to a range of institutional investors from the UK and United States.

Barclays’ head of global finance solutions has quit in a move to the buyside.

G4S, the UK security and outsourcing firm, is set to enter the US private placement market in the coming weeks, GlobalCapital understands. The deal will test market appetite for UK support services companies, after the sector has been hit by repeated blows.

Barclays’ head of financial institutions bond syndicate for Europe, the Middle East and Africa has left the bank.

The mania surrounding the UK’s exit from the European Union is reaching fever pitch but the City has ploughed on during the last three months, despite the appalling leadership shown by the UK’s leading politicians.

Leeds Building Society showed genuine leadership on Tuesday with its first Sonia-linked covered bond, a deal that was priced tightly with a well subscribed order book. Its stance stood in contrast to UK Parliamentarians, who dithered on a series of indicative votes on alternative Brexit strategies that were held on Monday night.

Young and Co’s Brewery, the owner and operator of roughly 220 pubs in London and the south east of England, has entered the US private placement market.

Network International, the Dubai-based payments company listing in London, was covered throughout its price range on its first day of bookbuilding on Monday. It built on a surge of momentum after it announced US firm Mastercard as a cornerstone investor in its IPO in March.

AstraZeneca, the British-Swedish pharmaceuticals giant, has priced a historic £2.7bn accelerated transaction ($3.5bn) to fund a transformational oncology collaboration. But sources close to the deal say that execution was complicated by Brexit drama last Friday.

Man Group has plucked an investment director from GAM to head up its European private debt business, and lead Man GPM's commercial and real estate debt team.