UK

A senior UK-focused equity capital markets banker at JP Morgan has left the bank to join Numis Securities as a managing director.

Electra Partners has completed the £181m IPO of Hollywood Bowl, the UK’s largest ten-pin bowling lane operator, after the deal was postponed in July due to the Brexit vote.

Rating: A3/A-/A

Credit risk has awakened from its summer slumber over the last couple of days with the CDX IG and iTraxx main index now trading 8% and 11% higher than their close on Thursday. While it’s still too early to see whether this latest surge is a passing event or a longer lasting trend, both indices are still below their 12 month averages and now trade roughly 40% off the highs set earlier in the year.

Shares in Informa, the UK publishing and events company, closed 6% higher on Thursday after it launched a fully underwritten £715m rights issue to partially finance its £1.18bn takeover of Penton, the New York-based information services and business-to-business publisher, in a transatlantic deal which the company says will expand its reach in the global exhibitions industry.

UK supermarket chain WM Morrison Supermarkets, better known as Morrison’s, has triggered an extension option on its £1.35bn revolving credit facility.

Biffa, the UK waste management company, has announced its intention to float on the London Stock Exchange.

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.