UK

JP Morgan has made two senior hires to for its equity capital markets team with Nick Skaff and Ismail Iraqi joining from Deutsche Bank to cover emerging markets.

Funding Circle, the SME lending fintech platform, has launched its IPO process and is seeking to raise £300m on the London Stock Exchange.

The Coca-Cola Company has made a £3.9bn swoop on UK coffee chain Costa, with loans bankers confident that plenty of liquidity exists in the sterling market for the trade. But it's a blow for UK equity capital markets participants, who had expected an IPO.

Growing fears that the UK could crash out of the EU without a deal are starting to weigh heavily on UK banks. The country’s most prominent issuers are finding it harder to drum up support for their bond deals, as investors find plenty of alternatives elsewhere. Tyler Davies reports.

Two of the euro corporate bond market’s more frequent issuers helped fully reopen the market with a pair of dual-tranche deals immediately following the UK August bank holiday. The quality of the credits was one of the reasons the market was able to digest €6.65bn of supply on the day.

While Brexit negotiations continued and banks juggled their contingency plans for various outcomes, two UK corporate issuers successfully accessed the euro corporate bond market this week.

BBVA has hired an ex-Deutsche Bank emerging markets DCM banker for its corporate debt syndicate.

On Wednesday, UK contract catering company Compass Group joined the euro corporate bond market rush with a new 10 year tranche as well as selling a seven year sterling tranche.

Aston Martin, the UK maker of luxury cars, has launched one of the most highly anticipated London IPOs in recent years, having announced its intention to float on Wednesday morning.

Durham University has raised £225m in a triple tranche US private placement, as competitive pricing and the range of available tenors lured the unrated credit to the private market.

Talk of the UK leaving the EU without a deal has given investors one more reason to shy away from supporting bond deals from the country's banks, during a busy period for new issuance.

One of the central planks of the UK government’s policy on how the financial services sector would cope with a no-deal Brexit could turn out to be illegal under World Trade Organisation rules, and could be challenged by other WTO members.