UK

JD Sports, the UK athletic wear company, has agreed a new revolving credit facility underwritten by existing relationship banks Barclays and HSBC, to finance its $558m acquisition of the US’s Finish Line.

Galliford Try, the UK construction company, has revealed the terms for the £157m ($221.1m) rights issue which it announced in mid-February to cover the costs of Carillion’s collapse.

After months of posturing, pan-European securities watchdog ESMA came down hard on "speculative" retail derivatives, restricting or banning products for three months.

Europe’s corporate bond new issue market is distinctly subdued as Easter Week begins. Investors, issuers and banks alike feel the market could do with a gap to digest the very heavy issuance earlier this month. This week brought two liability management deals, one with a new issue.

John Laing Group, the UK infrastructure projects company, has closed its £210m ($295.74m) rights issue after the deal attracted substantial interest.

Melrose’s £7bn-plus hostile takeover bid for UK engineering company GKN has entered its final week, with the industrial conglomerate making another case to GKN’s shareholders before Thursday’s deadline.

JD Sports, the UK casualwear company, is set to break into the US market by buying Finish Line for around $558m. The acquisition will be financed in the loan market.

Pfizer’s consumer healthcare business has gone from being the belle of the ball to the last one left on the dancefloor on Friday, after GlaxoSmithKline joined Reckitt Benckiser in pulling out of a potential acquisition of the unit.

New technologies are marching into the securities issuance process. This week came bids to shake up two very different kinds of private debt — traditional corporate Schuldscheine and funky structured notes.

The €13bn rights issue of UniCredit was acclaimed as the Equity Capital Markets Deal of the Year at GlobalCapital’s 2017 ECM Awards, which were presented on Tuesday night at our third ECM Awards Dinner, held at One Whitehall Place in London.

Investors this week called on the UK Debt Management Office (DMO) to extend the sovereign’s curve with its next syndication. Meanwhile, the buy-side cheered an agreement on a Brexit transition deal and analysts eyed a Bank of England rate hike in May, after its latest Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting this week.

UK property company Hammerson has signed a new £1.5bn three year revolving credit facility, bringing in a dozen banks for a financing aimed at slashing the funding costs of its acquisition target, Intu.