UK

Was it all a dream? At the start of the week the markets were in the throes of a full-blown panic, with talk of “Black Monday” and plentiful comparisons with the Lehman collapse. Yet barely three days later, the iTraxx Europe was back trading at 70.5bp, exactly the same level it was quoted at a week ago.

Since March 2009 Britain’s benchmark official rate has been 0.5% — the lowest rate in the Bank of England’s 320 year history, its long term average being about 4.5%. But recently BoE's governor Mark Carney speculated that it will begin to rise from the end of the year to around 2%, possibly heralding the end of the era of cheap money.

A member of Royal Bank of Scotland’s covered bond and SSA research team has left the bank.

Nomura has put Benedict Nielsen and Simon Deeny at risk of redundancy, as part of the extensive global markets headcount review it started two weeks ago.

The UK Debt Management Office is likely to pick a reopening of its 2068 inflation-linked Gilt for its September syndication, after holding a consultation with Gilt-edged Market Makers and investors on Monday.

Closely following Markit’s launch of a foreign exchange trade confirmation service, the company has agreed to acquire DealHub, a provider of FX trade processing and trading services.

Sanne, the corporate administration provider, spent £7m on transaction costs for its initial public offering in March, the firm said in its half year results.

UK infrastructure investment firm, John Laing Infrastructure Fund (JLIF) has signed a £180m revolving credit facility with two new lenders.

HSBC has been mandated as the sole offshore RMB concentration bank for LME Clear, clearing house for the London Metal Exchange (LME), which accepted the offshore renminbi (CNH) as eligible cash collateral earlier this month. The bank has told GlobalRMB that the initiative shows the growing prominence of RMB in commodities markets.

August is on course to become 2015’s busiest month for bank medium term note issuance in sterling, as cash rich investors are drawn to positive spreads over quarterly Libor.

Wealth manager, London & Capital (L&C) has launched a new emerging markets UCITS fund, the firm announced on Thursday.

Société Générale’s head of EMEA structured finance and loan syndication has moved to a new job within the bank and his responsibilities have been assumed by two colleagues.