UK

Major clearing house LCH on Wednesday announced that its COO, Daniel Maguire, has been appointed CEO of the firm.

LCH has begun clearing Swiss Franc interest rate swaps referencing the Swiss Average Overnight Rate (Saron), with Basler Kantonalbank, Credit Suisse and Zürcher Kantonalbank among the first to clear using the new benchmark.

Shares in RWS Holdings, the UK translation company, closed 14.6% lower on Wednesday after it raised £185m, 19% of its share capital, through a daytime capital increase to partly finance its $320m acquisition of Moravia, the Czech provider of technology-enabled translation and localisation services.

Quantile Technologies has completed its first compression run for client derivative positions held at LCH, executing the exercise in euro interest rate swaps.

Exotix, a research firm and investment bank has made three senior hires to expand business in frontier markets.

On Wednesday, Italian supermarket chain, Esselunga, became the first non-utility issuer to sell a benchmark corporate bond since Iliad’s €650m deal on October 5. The company’s debut deal saw one tranche priced at a lower yield than Italian government bonds.

Danske Bank has hired a new director for its loan syndications team in London, who was previously a vice-president on ING.

Equiniti, the UK share registrar and payments services company, has concluded its £122.2m rights issue, intended to partly finance its entry into the US market.

Prudential plc secured an attractive rate of funding when it sold a new perpetual tier two bond on Tuesday, but market participants remain unclear whether or not there is enough demand for fixed-for-life coupons to allow a flurry of new issuance from other European insurers.

Barclays has enhanced its bank research operation in Europe with the hire of two senior analysts to head the team.

Footasylum, the UK sports shoe retailer, plans to float on London’s Alternative Investment Market next month, it said in an intention to float document on Monday.

The Bank of England will take over the “end-to-end” administration of the Sterling Over Night Index Average (SONIA) benchmark and implement key reforms on April 23, 2018, the central bank confirmed on Monday.