Bank of America

A slew of Chinese issuers are wooing dollar bond investors on Thursday, as Philippine company Petron Corp also competes for buy-side attention.

Private equity firm Sun European Partners is merging its portfolio business Flamingo with Afriflora, the world’s largest exporter of roses to Europe, and funding it with an all-leveraged loan deal.

The Inter-American Development Bank provided further proof on Wednesday that there is deep demand at the five year part of the dollar curve — but another supranational is stepping up to test the long end of the currency for the first time this year.

On Tuesday multi-tranche and green bond issuance returned to the investment grade corporate bond market, leaving just the hybrid asset class untouched in 2018. That didn’t last long, as Engie and Aroundtown launched new hybrid deals on Wednesday morning, one of which set new lows for the product's coupon and spread levels.

On Wednesday French toll road operator Autoroutes du Sud de la France followed the path its compatriot Orange had taken on Tuesday by issuing a €1bn 12 year new issue. Meanwhile Italian auto finance bank FCA Bank was also in the market with its first benchmark floating rate note.

Puma Energy made a strong start for non-financial corporate issuers on Monday, making full use of investor familiarity with the credit — and some excess cash — to make its $750m market return.

PhosAgro, a Russian phosphate-based fertiliser company, is embarking on a series of investor meetings to market a five to seven year dollar bond.

Chinese technology giant Tencent Holdings is taking feedback from global investors for a 144A/Reg S transaction, and is looking to hit the market on Thursday morning.

The European Investment Bank on Tuesday produced its largest dollar deal in nearly three years — and its biggest book in even longer — in what bankers said was a clear signal of the strength of demand in the currency. The Inter-American Development Bank is next up in dollars, and more supranationals could still enter the fray this week, with supply expected to keep at a rampant pace until mid-February.

Puma Energy has returned to the debt markets to redeem its outstanding 2021s and in doing so will provide investors with a nice lump of cash to reinvest in a new offering of debt.

The equity block trades market in EMEA opened the week on Monday night with a TL496m ($132m) sale of stock in Mavi Jeans, the Turkish jeans maker that floated in Istanbul last year. The trade was covered inside an hour.

MLP Sağlık Hizmetler, also known as MLP Care, the largest private healthcare provider in Turkey, has begun investor education for its flotation on Borsa Istanbul, in which it hopes to raise about TL500m ($133m) of primary proceeds.