UK

The Financial Conduct Authority on Monday expressed concerns over the potential consolidation of market power in the hands of a few trading and clearing players, saying that a "lack of competition" could result in "higher prices" or a reluctance to invest to meet client needs.

BMW sold one of the first two trades in the euro corporate bond market in 2018. It took until April to follow that with a five-tranche offering in the dollar market. It waited less than the week then to make its first visit to the sterling market, but found sterling investors in a similarly stubborn mood to that of euro investors.

Santander UK found strong demand for a three year floating rate sterling covered bond on Friday and will be followed by Sparebank 1, which has mandated leads for investor meetings with a view to issuing a sterling five year. At the same time, SBanken Boligkreditt has mandated leads for a roadshow with a view to issuing its first euro deal.

China Resources Land bagged Rmb4bn ($635.7m) from a two tranche Panda bond on Wednesday, marking its fifth outing in the market. But the issuer had to change tack at the last minute after investor demand built up for the longer-dated note.

Moody’s trimmed its ratings for Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland this week, citing concern about the impact that ring-fencing regulation could have on the banks’ creditors.

Commodity trader Glencore received a glorious response from the loan market to its latest refinancing, with the size of its annual revolver leaping by almost $4bn during syndication to close at $9.7bn. But senior bankers warned that this is a sign of lender desperation, not borrower strength, writes Michael Turner.

Nationwide Building Society issued its first sterling covered bond for two years on Thursday and showed that demand for the product was still strong as it picked up £1bn of five year funding.

Moody’s has slapped a downgrade review on UK engineering group GKN’s Ba3 rating following the successful hostile takeover bid from industrial conglomerate Melrose.

A pair of gatecrashers have burst into Temenos’ £1.4bn bid for UK trading technology firm Fidessa, with one party offering a 5% premium to the existing deal from the Swiss banking software company.

Commodity trader Glencore has ramped up the size of its short term revolver by almost $4bn between syndication launch and signing, with dozens of banks piling into the refinancing exercise in the latest example of deal starved lenders scrabbling for places to put money to work.

Mireille Dyrberg, the former COO of Nex Group fintech subsidiary TriOptima, has joined data reconciliation firm Duco.

ECM director Nishit Ruparelia is understood to have left Citi before the Easter break, having been at the bank for over 13 years.