Banks

Indonesia’s state-owned oil and natural gas company Pertamina has raised a $1.85bn project loan from a group of 12 banks.

Axel Springer's shareholders have given a green light to a public-to-private takeover offer from KKR, which values the German media company at €6.7bn.

Commerzbank has appointed its first head of syndicated and leveraged finance, a unit created within its new capital markets division.

Investors hoping for new investment grade corporate bonds this week may be disappointed, as widening spreads and falling equities make the market less tempting for issuers.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has hired James Palmer to act as chairman of its equity capital markets business for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Ingredients group Tate & Lyle has priced a $200m US private placement, in order to refinance a sterling bond set to expire in November.

Swiss firm responsAbility Investments has closed a $175m microfinance CLO via JP Morgan, revitalising an industry which last saw issuance before the financial crisis.

The UK’s Foresight Solar Fund has signed a £245m bank financing package, as lenders to smaller companies say that they might hit record lending levels this year despite sharply pared down volumes elsewhere.

The UK’s Helical has amended and extended its bank debt, with the office real estate firm ramping up the size of its revolving credit facility to £400m.

Analysts at Danske Bank have said that Moody's could raise Portugal's credit rating this week even, amid signs of a weakening European economy. Such a move would have a knock-on impact for the country's banking industry, which has shown clear progress in improving its asset quality.

John Flint quit his position as CEO of HSBC on Monday after less than two years in the job, as the bank warned of difficult global conditions in its second quarter results. The bank’s chair Mark Tucker implied the desire for change related to a problem with Flint’s execution of the bank’s strategy, rather than the strategy itself, but the departure has also raised questions about HSBC’s Chinese operations.

The European Commission has asked the European Banking Authority (EBA) to say how Basel IV could affect banks’ ability to meet their total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) requirements — work that it says is "essential" to understanding the impact of the new reforms.