What's good for General Motors appears to be good for Marks & Spencer, too. At least, the British retail chain last week launched a £400m (€600m) bond issue in order to plug most of the £585m hole in its pension scheme.

This was a modest echo of the decision last June by the US motor giant to take advantage of favourable conditions in the corporate bond market to raise $13.6bn (€11bn) to help cover a yawning gap of $19bn between liabilities and assets.