UK

Hipgnosis Songs Fund, the London-listed investment trust focused on music catalogues, has announced a £150m share placing to fund its backlog of asset acquisitions.

UK listed construction firm Breedon has launched a private placement deal, according to market sources, making it one of the first UK companies to hit the market this year.

Helios Towers, the London-listed telecoms towers company focused on the Middle East and Africa, has completed a $160m capital raising, including a $50m tap of its outstanding 2027 convertible bond.

HSBC Asset Management is unifying its alternatives businesses, creating a single 150-strong team led by Joanna Munro, previously the firm’s global chief investment officer, in London.

The largest institutional investors in the private placement market have the cash and, increasingly, the origination capabilities to draw companies into bilateral and club trades. If these whales can show companies there is no pricing pick-up over syndicated deals, the broader market is bound to lose ground.

A trio of senior bankers from Credit Suisse’s European financial institutions group (FIG) have followed the team’s European head to Jefferies.

TSB Bank attracted good demand for its Sonia-linked covered bond on Tuesday, pushing out along the curve with a rare seven year that sufficiently differentiates from central bank liquidity. The extraordinarily strong sterling market conditions encouraged Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce to follow Bank of Nova Scotia and mandate leads for another five year Sonia offering.

The UK government is consulting with market participants about new powers enabling it to block companies from listing their shares in the country on national security grounds. The move comes after concerns were raised about the 2017 listing of energy and metals company EN+.

Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) priced its first Sonia-linked Canadian covered bond, the largest ever issued against Sonia and the first from a Canadian bank in well over a year on Monday. A t the same time TSB mandated leads for another Sonia linked covered bond.

As much as everyone would like to put the UK's messy divorce from the EU behind them, it remains a very live topic — especially for bankers who don't want to live in Frankfurt.

This week's funding scorecard looks at the progress European sovereigns have made in their funding programmes as we approach the middle of June.

Seraphim Space, one of the world’s largest investors in space technology, is launching a new investment trust on the London Stock Exchange, giving investors exposure to investments in the increasingly lucrative sector.