Bank of America

Qatar National Bank (QNB) has signed a $3.5bn loan with 21 international banks, with one of those also selling over $2.3bn of MTNs for the issuer, showing that banks’ jitters about supporting Qatari entities in the wake of the dispute between the sultanate and six other Arab states have partly been assuaged. Bianca Boorer and Virginia Furness report.

American issuers old and new enjoyed the benefits of the euro investment grade corporate bond market in 2017. In comparison, 2018 has been very quiet so far, but some bankers do not expect that situation to remain for much longer.

Anglo-Dutch consumer goods company Unilever has become known in the corporate bond markets for its multiple tranche deals. Its latest deal is its third such trade in the last three years, and investors showed they still have plenty of appetite for the name, helping the company print its largest ever deal, despite market turmoil in the US.

Global stock markets have suffered from volatility in recent trading sessions but European primary leveraged finance markets had already slowed down as investor pressure grew around a €1.4bn deal for storage firm Algeco Scotsman and the worrying performance of UK retailer New Look.

Aster DM Healthcare is finally set to launch its Rp9.8bn ($152.7m) IPO, having once again scaled back the deal size and changed the syndicate.

GlobalCapital revealed the winners of its 2017 Loan Awards at its annual Loans and Leveraged Finance Awards Dinner at Gibson Hall in London on February 7. The full results are below: GlobalCapital congratulates all the winners and nominees.

Qatar National Bank has signed a $3.5bn loan with 21 international banks, showing that banks' jitters about supporting Qatari entities in the wake of the dispute between the sultanate and six other Arab states have partly been assuaged.

A buoyant January in equities markets has been followed by a difficult start to February, with the first IPOs out of a full pipeline seeing some issues in marketing just as stock markets tumble across the globe.

Informa, the UK media group, will initially pay 85bp over Libor for the acquisition debt facility due to partly finance its £3.9bn ($5.4bn) purchase of events company UBM. The spread will rise to a maximum of 225bp, depending on when the debt is repaid.

A group of five banks has agreed to underwrite UK garages company EG Group’s $2.15bn purchase of US firm Kroger’s convenience store business, after the equity market wobbles this week failed to put a dent in the year’s M&A extravaganza.

The plunge in global stock prices has only caused the European investment grade corporate bond market to close for one day. On Wednesday, two pharmaceutical companies from different ends of the the ratings spectrum brought multi-tranche deals which attracted more than €9.5bn of combined demand.

India’s capital markets regulator has given ICICI Securities the greenlight to hold an IPO, which is expected to raise at least Rp30bn ($467m).