UK

The Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) IPO market suffered during the sell-off that hit equity markets hard last week. But amid the wreckage of pulled flotations and weak aftermarket performance, two exciting listings from Kazakhstan and Belarus are underway and equity capital markets bankers and investors are beginning to see the promise in the markets in, and beyond, Europe’s eastern fringe, writes Sam Kerr.

NatWest has become the first bank to integrate with a new blockchain-based platform that the UK lender says will “dramatically transform and streamline” the £3.5tr global syndicated loans market.

This week the Netherlands took a major step towards becoming the latest European country to introduce a law enabling banks to issue senior non-preferred debt. And earlier this month the UK government closed a consultation for its own law to introduce the instrument.

Debt buyers piled into the first high yield bond deal from UK supermarket chain Tesco, which increased its offering by half and reached investment grade pricing as order books swelled to eight times the initial benchmark size.

A veteran EM trader has been put at risk of redundancy after 26 years with JP Morgan.

The UK’s Heathrow Airport has signed its first loan from Canada’s export credit agency, building its presence among the country’s financiers after printing C$800m of bonds earlier this year.

The UK’s Ithaca Energy has signed $700m of loans, five months after pulling out of a high yield bond deal.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said on Wednesday that the financial services industry positively received its plans to automate regulatory reporting requirements in the main.

The UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which is now in charge of the country’s policy on climate change, has hired a Bank of England official on secondment for a key role shaping green finance policy.

CYBG’s move to an internal ratings based (IRB) approach highlights how the UK’s largest lenders enjoy a substantial competitive benefit over the challengers.

The UK government might seem to have little clue about where the the City of London will drum up business after the country leaves the EU in March but the City, and notably the London Stock Exchange, has always been more global than European in nature. For better or worse, it will likely come to rely on this more in the months and years to come.

High yield rated UK supermarket chain Tesco has launched a new bond with investment grade style features to fund tender offers for eight outstanding bonds, just days after a recent rating upgrade from Fitch Ratings.