European LevFin Wrap — Not so Great Britain & primary perks up
- Ryan Daniel
Primary activity bounced back after last week’s central bank bonanza.
A high yield portfolio manager said: “There’s quite a few deals coming from the Fed pausing. I think companies are taking the opportunity to come to market while they can”.
That said, the Bank of England ramped up its hiking cycle on Thursday, surprising the market with a 50 bps increase in Bank Rate. It’s now at 5% — the highest level since 2008.
Adding insult to injury, Jim Reid from Deutsche Bank pointed out that “UK debt-to-GDP ratio surpassed 100% of GDP in May for the first time since March 1961. For a sense of how long ago that was, it was a month before Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space and was also the last time Spurs were on course to win the league title”.