Bank of America

The prospect of Pfizer sweetening its takeover bid for UK rival AstraZeneca to £64bn ($108bn) or more is raising expectations of a jumbo bond financing by the US pharmaceuticals major.

The bank is reaching the end of its investment banking rebuild in Europe with a resurgence in its M&A business, writes David Rothnie.

Volkswagen Bank launched a €300m three year floating rate note today that, while hardly a blowout, achieved its objective of tight pricing, bankers said.

French geosciences firm CGG came to the high yield bond market for the second time in less than a fortnight on Monday, following its euro debut with a return to dollars.

Korea Resources Corporation (KoRes) priced a five year transaction on Tuesday night. The issuer will be using the proceeds to repay a project financing facility for a mining project in Mexico.

Taqa used the strategy of a capped size and fair starting point for price talk to print its $750m 10 year bond 10bp inside its outstanding curve on Tuesday, according to a lead manager. It built a $4.55bn book in the process.

Tata Motors priced a $300m seven year bullet through its subsidiary TML Holdings on Wednesday. The borrowing entity's ownership of Jaguar Land Rover Automotive was seen as bolstering investor support for the credit, enabling the issuer to come tight with what was its first dollar deal.

Philippine giant San Miguel Group’s latest bond offering came in the form of a perpetual non-call 5.5 this week from SMC Global Power Holdings. The deal was priced on Tuesday just wide of sister company Petron’s similarly structured perp.

Asia’s top refiner, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), has picked Bank of America Merrill Lynch, CICC, Citic Securities and Deutsche Bank to advise on the restructuring of its retail unit, the company announced on April 24.

SingTel signed loans worth a chunky S$3.5bn ($2.8bn) via two separate facilities this week, with a large number of banks piling in.

AS Watson, the retail and manufacturing arm of Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, is speaking with banks for a HK$15bn loan ($1.93bn) and is counting on its relationship banks to take the deal forward. But bankers are already speculating that the transaction will not be an easy one, owing to the slim margin of 85bp over dollar Libor.

Lenovo's lack of a rating is not putting investors off the new five year bond that it kicked off on Tuesday, although bankers reckon that the issuer will have to pay up a little. By late afternoon in Hong Kong, the Chinese computer giant had already amassed $2bn of orders for its five year bond, which is due to price overnight.