UK

FTSE 250 bus and rail company Go-Ahead has signed a £200m bridge loan to insure against execution risk when it comes to refinance a sterling bond. A number of investment grade companies have been exercising precautionary liquidity management of late, said one banker in London.

Inmarsat, the satellite communications company, this week sold the first convertible bond since July.

The United States has unseated the United Kingdom from its long dominance of over-the-counter interest rate swaps (IRS) trading, according to an industry report this week.

Investment company Melrose has completed its $1.25bn loan syndication, according to a banker on the deal. The borrower is one of very few to have launched a deal since the UK’s referendum on EU membership on June 23, but its oversubscription in syndication signalled that borrowers brave enough to try for loans will be rewarded, as banks continue to battle it out for market share. Robert Cooke reports.

HSBC and Santander UK found strong demand for senior bonds issued from their holding companies this week, revealing an opportunity for more deeply subordinated supply such as Nordea’s tier two benchmark.

Even with the flood of bankers leaving banks to join the fintech revolution — in which it seems every move has some mind-blowing potential impact on the future of finance — former Royal Bank of Scotland banker Richard Bartlett’s move to start-up ‘social impact’ short-term lender Uberima is unique.

More than $1.5bn worth of block trades completed within the space of three days this week showed that the summer break in European equity capital markets is well and truly over. The deals included two big Swedish sell-downs by EQT worth more than $500m, and a Sfr539m sale of Straumann Group shares.

UK distressed debt buyer Arrow Global this week returned to the market, after selling euros in April, with a refinancing deal to repay in full its 7.875% 2020 notes.

Santander UK issued a highly oversubscribed senior unsecured euro benchmark from its holding group entity (holdco) on Thursday with virtually no concession, further illustrating the market’s desperate thirst for this higher yielding asset class.

Sirius Minerals, the company developing a potash mine in North Yorkshire, has mandated six banks to arrange $2.6bn financing for the project.

Maybank Kim Eng, the securities arm of the Malaysian lender, has added to its team in the UK with a slew of hires.

Apax Partners and Guardian Media Group have raised £200m by selling down 20% of Ascential, the British information and events company, via an accelerated bookbuild launched on Wednesday evening.