Barclays

The transaction that was supposed to open up the additional tier one market in South Korea ended up having the opposite effect last week as Woori Bank’s penny-pinching led to a heavy sell-off in secondary. Woori is unlikely to be damaged by the incident, but it needs to recognise that its actions have consequences for the rest of the market.

FIG issuers paid double-digit new issue concessions across the board in the dollar market this week as they were rocked by choppy market conditions.

Optimal Payments, the Isle of Man-based secure payments provider, has guided pricing on the financing for its acquisition of Skrill, before closing the deal, and replaced amortising loans with a bullet facility.

Ineos, the UK chemical company registered in Switzerland, is allocating €2bn of leveraged loans after an amend-and-extend exercise that led to a refinancing of some of its dollar debt.

Motability Operations Group, the UK provider of cars and powered wheelchairs for disabled people, drew a chunky order book for an eight year euro bond on Wednesday, using a generous new issue premium to offset difficult market conditions.

French oil and gas company Total launched a sterling deal on Tuesday, tapping the currency for the third time in two years — and for the first time since being downgraded by Fitch in February.

It has been an active week in the European private bespoke debt market, with Vroon agreeing a private placement while Hamburg Energienetze wrapped up a Schuldschein.

Banco Sabadell ended a month-long drought of periphery issuance on Friday by scraping through a €750m five year covered bond sale. A mooted 10 year never appeared.

Woori Bank this week became the first non-Chinese bank to print an additional tier one (AT1) bond in Asia ex-Japan. The Korean lender was able to achieve the lowest coupon globally for an AT1 deal but sparked criticism that it was too aggressive with pricing and risked shutting the bank capital pipeline from the country, writes Narae Kim.

Investors piled into the first offshore renminbi bond from Lenovo Group, keen to get their hands on some rare corporate supply. The strong response allowed the borrower to upsize the five year offering to Rmb4bn ($645m), equalling the record for the largest corporate dim sum bond.

Bharti Airtel showed that scoring a huge order book is not necessary for a deal to be deemed a success. Its $1bn trade attracted just double that in bids, but Bharti still managed to achieve its tightest ever spread, with the bonds also trading well in the aftermarket.

Ghana National Cocoa Board (Cocobod) has completed the early bird senior phase of its annual loan syndication with a strong oversubscription, said bankers involved in the deal.