Top Stories

• Merck bags Eu3.2bn with ease as wait ends for M&A bonds

  Merck KGaA drew orders of almost Eu26bn for a Eu3.2bn acquisition-related bond this week. While the issue grabbed investors’ attention as the first M&A-driven bond to hit Europe this year, the deal’s pricing also came under scrutiny as retail buyers, once again piling into a booming corporate bond market, drove the price tighter. read more »

• Santander caps 7-strong week as covered revival spreads to Spain

  Santander launched the first Spanish benchmark covered bond in two months on Thursday, a Eu1bn seven year cédulas hipotecarias transaction that highlighted the recovery of the market after a frustrating February. read more »

• Lloyds shapes up for LT2 as FIG rallies on

  Lloyds TSB Bank issued the first lower tier two deal from a UK bank with government support this week. It demonstrated the borrower’s rehabilitation and — along with Nordea Bank which also this week priced a lower tier two deal — the strength of appetite for the subordinated product in a resurgent financial institutions market. read more »

People & Markets

• Southpaw: Calculators out for Nomura’s EMEA bankers after shake-up

  • Bhattal coup placates ex-Lehman bankers in Asia … • … but Sayeed loss threatens stable European team • Firm braced for departures after FSA bonus sign-off read more »

• The Naked Broker: The way we wore

  A few days ago I arrived in the office wearing a suit and everyone immediately assumed I was interviewing for a job somewhere else. read more »

• FSA’s Turner revisits ‘socially useless’, calls for new way

  Adair Turner, the chairman of the UK’s Financial Services Authority, laid out the philosophical underpinnings of the regulator’s new approach to macro-prudential risk in a speech on Wednesday. read more »

• Citi picks former syndicate head Young to run DCM unit

  Citi has picked a former bond syndicate banker to run its European debt capital markets business following Eirik Winter’s appointment as head of global banking for the Nordic region. read more »

• CEMEA debt head quits UBS, follows departure of Vasan

  UBS lost its second senior DCM banker in a week, with its head of CEMEA debt capital markets following its European head of FIG debt capital markets out of the door. read more »

Inside EuroWeek

• VW Bank’s Driver Seven reaches new tights

  Volkswagen Bank’s German auto loan ABS Driver Seven was massively oversubscribed when it was priced on Wednesday afternoon, resulting in the tightest new issue pricing for a European securitisation since Lehman Brothers’ collapse. read more »

• Tatneft ‘reverse-flexes’ $2bn pre-export financing

  Oil group Tatneft has tightened pricing on a $2bn pre-export financing, in a sign of banks’ hunger for Russian deals. read more »

• Convert buyers develop taste for CMBS as A-Reit refinances

  Asia’s deal-starved structured finance market got an unlikely boost this week in the form of a convertible bond that came with all the features of a commercial mortgage-backed securitisation. read more »