UK

Steinhoff has agreed a loan with one new lender and bumped up its bridge facility with Crédit Agricole and UniCredit. The steps were taken to support the retailer’s increased offer for the UK’s discount retailer Poundland.

Support for the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse’s merger plans has solidified among the German exchange’s shareholders, with more than 75% having tendered their shares — crossing the original threshold set by management.

The rally in sterling covered bonds still has some way to go. With another UK rate cut and limited supply, spreads should halve in the next few months.

Morrison Utility Services launched on Wednesday £170m of loans to early bird syndication, bringing supply to a market where sterling issuance has dropped more than 55% year to date.

Standard Chartered attracted huge demand for a Reg S additional tier one note on Thursday, clearly displaying the asset class’s recovery over the past two months.

Cineworld, Europe's second largest cinema operator, has increased the size of its revolving credit facility by £25m to fund its acquisition of five UK cinema sites.

Places for People, the UK housing company, on Wednesday sold £400m ($519.35m) of bonds with orders more than 2.5 times the offering size, despite tapping the market just two weeks after Moody’s cut its rating to A3.

Shell made a quick move from publishing earnings results to issuing a dual tranche bond on Wednesday, the euro market’s only investment grade corporate deal of the week.

UK retail sales in July increased 1.9% year on year, according to a report from British Retail Consortium and KPMG. But with loan pricing barely budging, there is unlikely to be much deal flow, especially refinancings, from UK retailers this year, according to two bankers.

European equity capital markets remain muted ahead of what many participants expect to be an extremely busy autumn window. Yet in London, there is one live deal of substantial size progressing steadily towards completion.

Two weeks into August and the anticipated summer slowdown is still not that slow, with big name borrowers continuing to test both the investment grade and high yield bond market, as well as bringing leveraged loans.

Shares in Melrose Industries, the UK investment firm, began trading ex-rights on Tuesday ahead of its £1.6bn ($2.08bn) rights issue on the London Stock Exchange.