UK

Waha Capital — Vitec

The Bank of England doesn’t often follow the European Central Bank. During the financial crisis and its aftermath, the Bank was quick to cut interest rates and implement quantitative easing. The ECB was still raising rates in July 2008, and didn’t start QE until 2015.

Sterling corporate issuers stood ready to take a lump out of their costs of funding on Thursday after the Bank of England announced a £10bn bond buying programme targeting their market.

Energias de Portugal made an opportunistic grab for euros on Thursday, proving that even as August begins, healthy order books and negative new issue premiums are still available for corporate bond issuers.

Vitec, the UK supplier of equipment to the broadcasting and photography industries, has refinanced its £125m credit facility, replacing one bank in the syndicate.

The UK’s Prudential Regulatory Authority has offered the nation’s banks a chance to temporarily free up some capital now used to comply with the leverage ratio requirement.

Auto-parts business Adient on Thursday started pricing a $2bn cross-border bond, attracting high demand for a deal that could be the last high yield offering before the European market breaks for the summer.

TSB successfully placed its tier two notes with new investors in the secondary market this week, in a deal that seemed to confirm confidence in both UK banks and the sterling market.

David Leeming, head of hybrid capital and liability management at RBS, has left the bank.

UK housing association group Orbit Group nipped in ahead of the corporate bond market’s summer break to issue the retained £50m portion of a 30 year secured bond.

Anyone who thinks that a merger between LSE and Deutsche Börse is odds-on now they have shareholder approval should hold that thought — there is still a very long way to go, with many twists and turns ahead.

Orbit Group is holding investor update calls ahead of a planned issuance of £50m of bonds that it had retained from a March deal.