UK

Advent International and Bain Capital this week completed their second block trade of shares in Worldpay, the UK payment services provider, since its IPO in October last year, raising £987m via an accelerated bookbuild.

Talk of the European Central Bank extending its bond buying programme to banks sent the iTraxx Europe Senior Financials credit default swap basket back within 20bp of the Main index on Monday and to its tightest levels since the UK referendum vote on EU membership at the end of June.

British American Tobacco issued the first corporate sterling bond of the autumn on Monday as it reached for tenor, tapping the market for a 36 year deal.

Aviva and Prudential were looking to issue new tier two bonds at the beginning of the week, with insurers looking to profit from recent resilience in spread levels and strong appetite for UK risk.

Telefónica announced on Monday an intention to sell a portion of its telecommunications infrastructure subsidiary, Telxius. It is part of the largest listed Spanish company's attempts to reduce its debt, along with a listing of UK mobile firm, O2.

ICBC Standard Bank has hired Vikram Khanna as head of advisory, a newly created position.

Segro, the UK property developer, has raised £324m through an accelerated bookbuild it launched on Friday morning after saying that the Brexit vote had not affected its operational performance.

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.