UK

Morgan Stanley Investment Management, the asset management division of Morgan Stanley, has launched two new multi-asset global funds, the Global Balanced Fund and the Global Balanced Defensive Fund.

Neither heat nor summer holidays could put a dampener on Barclays’ $1.5bn additional tier one trade on Wednesday. The bank brought in a $15bn book for its deal, and on Thursday was hotly traded on the secondary market.

Melrose, the UK industrial buyouts specialist, completed its jumbo rights issue on Wednesday, raising £1.6bn to partly finance its reverse takeover of Nortek, a US air conditioning systems manufacturer.

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) and Deutsche Börse have submitted their merger plans to European competition regulators, in the hopes of wrapping up the deal in the first half of 2017.

Blockchain initiatives in financial markets came to the fore this week, with a group of banks teaming up to apply the technology to making payments and settling transactions, while a survey of 25 financial exchanges found that most of them are testing distributed ledger technology.

Fisch Asset management, the boutique asset manager, has made a pair of appointments in its convertible bond team.

Gilt-edged market makers and investors are calling for the UK Debt Management Office to sell a long dated conventional syndication in October and follow it with an index-linked deal in November.

The Brexit vote has damaged banks’ UK hiring plans and left their revenue projections in tatters, but the country’s status as Europe’s biggest fee pool will remain intact, writes David Rothnie.

UBS and three other banks are working together to apply blockchain technology to making payments and settling transactions in financial markets.

Activity in equity capital markets looks to be growing after a summer lull. Several large transactions have either been announced or completed in Europe and Africa.

Gilt-edged market makers and investors are calling for the UK Debt Management Office to sell a long dated conventional syndication in October and follow it with an index–linked deal in November.

Barclays on Tuesday announced an additional tier one trade in dollars, taking advantage of an empty despite strong conditions. The deal is expected to be priced on Wednesday.