BNP Paribas

Vodafone launched and priced on Thursday a $2bn hybrid capital issue, to gain some more equity credit in the eyes of the rating agencies. The deal follows Moody’s decision on Monday to give no equity credit to Vodafone’s £3.4bn mandatorily convertible bond, issued on March 5.

A trio sovereigns went to the MTN market over the past week, including Italy, which issued a yen bond for the first time since 2009. The deal, led by Nomura, was also its first issue in a foreign currency since 2010.

The French bank is continuing to execute its plan to become Europe’s leading corporate finance house, despite headwinds and looming consolidation, writes David Rothnie.

Sean Tai, founder of Debtdomain, spoke exclusively to GlobalCapital to discuss digital platforms in the Schuldschein market: their future, barriers to entry, the risk of fragmentation — and the possibility that Debtdomain's functionality could broaden.

Deutsche Börse has run an amend and extend operation on a €750m loan to add a sustainable element to its debt, as some lenders continue to rail against the proliferation of what they see as refinancing in all but fees.

CMGE Technology Group and Haitong UniTrust International Leasing are keeping their IPO plans alive, having resubmitted applications to the Hong Kong's stock exchange.

Global alternative investment firm Castlelake is tapping the offshore loan market for $685.1m to support its purchase of aircraft from Malaysia’s AirAsia.

Spanish telecommunications company Cellnex’s €1.2bn rights issue has finished more than 16 times covered after its shareholders bought into its growth plans.

Barclays is under pressure from activist investor Edward Bramson to slim down its investment bank. But among top European IBs, it made the second highest amount of revenue in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2018, according to new research. The results were less promising for Deutsche Bank, however.

High yield bond investors in Europe are getting squeezed from both sides, as formerly regular visitors to the market hit investment grade status, and new acquisition financings hit the loan market rather than bonds. Schaeffler’s blow-out debut in the investment grade bond market on Tuesday took out €1.5bn equivalent of former HY product.

A surge of additional tier one issuance this week shone a light on how activity in the market is going to shape up in the coming months and years — refinancing is now the main game in town.

With many Asian companies readying their earnings in their respective blackout periods, a trickling of Chinese property bonds have kept debt investors busy.