Banks

Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, is hunting for a $10bn loan, according to market sources. Plummeting oil prices will send borrowers across the Gulf scrambling to raise financing. But creditors seem happy to plough money into the region, for now. Mariam Meskin reports.

French aerospace and defence company Safran has set up a new €3bn loan facility.

Bpifrance is preparing to issue a bond which will be used to provide loans to companies in France to help them overcome the economic difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic.

The corporate bond market has returned to some semblance of normality, with Switzerland’s Firmenich and Australia’s APA Group taking the traditional route of holding a roadshow before opening books, and syndicate bankers say the wild, record-breaking weeks for primary issuance are over for now.

Netflix was set to price a five year euro tranche in a $1bn-equivalent high yield bond at 3% on Thursday evening, proving there is ready market access available for companies that can demonstrate they’re coping with coronavirus. The streaming company saw record subscriber growth and broke into free cash flow territory for the first time, partly thanks its smash hit documentary Tiger King, watched by 64 million households.

Credit Suisse took a $294m hit from marking leveraged finance underwriting exposure to market in the first quarter, its results on Thursday showed, as March’s volatility and jump in credit spreads took their toll.

Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional is in the market to offload a chunk of Tenaga Nasional shares. It is looking to raise up to MR910.2m ($208.8m) from the block.

The Republic of Hungary made a jumbo return to euro markets on Thursday with its first hard currency trade since 2018. Bankers expect more trades from both the sovereign and its neighbours.

Gemdale, a Chinese property company, raised the ire of investors this week when it cut the coupon on an outstanding bond by 379bp, despite documentation stating the coupon could only be increased. Rebecca Feng reports.

Svenska Handelsbanken and Swedbank looked to be as transparent as possible when laying out their assumptions for loan losses this week, as part of an effort to reassure the market about their resilience in the face of the coronavirus crisis.

Hansoh Pharmaceutical Group, a China-based drug maker, pocketed HK$3.49bn ($450m) from a larger-than-planned issue of primary shares this week.

UBS has hired Fan Yang from China Merchants Securities International as chairman of global banking for Asia, a newly created position at the Swiss firm.