UK

In this round-up, China is keen to expand FTZ sphere, yield differential continues to narrow between offshore and onshore bonds, and London reiterates desire to promote RMB internationalisation. Plus, a recap of our coverage this week.

IHS Markit has hired a senior official from ICAP to help grow its foreign exchange business.

IHS Markit will not overhaul the iTraxx Europe credit default swap index at the September roll next week to address UK bank debt regulations, say analysts, but the index operator will look at whether to change its rules in the near future.

Debt collector Lowell GFKL — formed by a merger between the UK’s Lowell Group and Germany’s GFKL Group in late 2015 — hit the road to entice investors into its floating rate notes, which it will use to add a third company to the group, Germany’s Tesch Inkasso.

IHS Markit will not overhaul the iTraxx Europe credit default swap index at the September roll next week to address UK bank debt regulations, say analysts, but the index operator will look at whether to change its rules in the near future.

National Grid Gas followed its £3bn Tuesday visit to the sterling market with a €750m eight year bond that completes its primary bond market financing ahead of its 2017 sale.

A UK committee has launched an inquiry into Solvency II this week, as it considers other options for the country’s insurance industry following the decision to leave the EU.

Pure Gym, the UK’s largest gym operator, is proceeding with its £190m IPO on the London Stock Exchange to finance its expansion plans and substantially reduce debt.

National Grid Gas printed a £3bn ($3.97bn) jumbo transaction that exceeded even its own expectations this week as sterling investors demonstrated a phenomenal capacity to absorb corporate paper.

European Union wheat futures contracts began trading this week on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, with as much as 20,000 metric tons worth of contracts having been transacted on Monday according to the firm.

When the Bank of England published the list of bonds it could buy under its new corporate bond purchasing scheme, set to run from the beginning of October, it only underlined how poorly suited the sterling corporate capital market is for extraordinary monetary policy.

HSBC has named Jackson Tai, the former Asia Pacific chairman of JP Morgan and chief executive officer of DBS, as an independent non-executive director of its board.