UK

The UK this week once again broke its record order book, with bankers suggesting the huge demand may have been down to investors taking their last chance for ultralong sovereign sterling paper for some time.

Sean Weissenberger has moved to Citi to run EMEA chemicals investment banking.

LCH SwapAgent has processed its first trades, with Citi and Deutsche Bank becoming the system's first counterparties as they executed a Swiss franc denominated interest rate swap and a euro denominated inflation swap.

It is not unusual to hear DCM bankers on sterling deals talk about the sophisticated nature of the investor base. Issuers on roadshows also often say they feel they have the best dialogues with UK-based investors, who have often done their credit work before meetings and want to discuss details in more depth than the usual page turning of an investor presentation deck.

Steven Jensen is leaving his loan syndication sales position at Nordic bank SEB in London to join Norwegian bank DNB.

A mid-market shake-out is under way in UK corporate broking as global banks and smaller rivals jostle for supremacy, writes David Rothnie.

The marketing of French oil company Total’s £250m seven year bond issue on Tuesday was the second attempt in recent months to reconfigure the way investors are sold bond deals. The first attempt by Vodafone, in July, struggled to gain support euro investors. However, the response to the Total deal suggests that approach could be replicated, at least in sterling. Nigel Owen reports.

Spanish clothing retailer Cortefiel priced its leveraged buyout bond on Thursday, in a sign that the high yield market is open for challenging credits.

As expected, no euro issuers were tempted to compete with the European Central Bank meeting on Thursday, however British Land took the opportunity to bring its first senior bond since 2006.

Nationwide Building Society was looking to cement the outstanding secondary market performance of its £550m core capital deferred shares (CCDS) by issuing roughly £500m more of the rare product on Thursday.

Axel Weber, chairman of UBS, warned ahead of the European Central Bank (ECB) meeting on Thursday that “unknown unknowns” lie in wait for markets once the course of unwinding quantitative easing begins.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) on Wednesday announced a spate of changes to its senior management, all due to be enacted in October, including the replacement of veteran president of ICE Futures Europe David Peniket with Stuart Williams.