Commerzbank

African Export-Import Bank has named the banking group Afreximbank for its completed syndication of a $458m and €406m dual tranche term loan, its largest ever.

After a week’s hesitation, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank has gone ahead with its IPO, in a sign of confidence in the market – despite the ever uglier masses of cloud building over Greece and China. If it is completed, the deal will raise over €1bn, and be almost certainly the largest IPO left in the European market before the August lull.

European Investment Bank has printed in Ecoop format for the second day in a row, as conditions improved for eurozone periphery sovereign issuers — aside from Greece.

A few IPOs remain in the market, although several have been pulled in the last few days — or, like that of Germany’s Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, put on hold.

Turkiye Sinai Kalkinma Bankasi, the industrial development bank, has closed a €256m-equivalent refinancing loan with banks, increasing it from the deal it signed last year.

Turkish financial institutions have taken no notice of the slowdown of deals elsewhere in the CEEEMEA region, with several deals progressing this week.

Halkbank has agreed a $888m equivalent loan with banks, making use of the novel 364/367 day tenor structure introduced by peer Turkish banks this year.

Public sector borrowers are snapping up opportunities in the medium term note market, as Greece’s bail-out negotiations and imminent US non-farm payroll data stifle syndicated supply.

German cosmetics firm Douglas Holding, which is being acquired by CVC Partners from Advent International, sold €635m of high yield bonds on Friday after cutting their size for a second time.

CVC Partners on Thursday reduced to below €1bn its high yield offering to fund the acquisition of German cosmetics retailer Douglas Holding — yet investors dismissed the cut as a sign of an increasingly ‘closed for business’ market.

Sunrise Medical, a German wheelchair maker, is holding a bank meeting on Friday to market a €315m acquisition loan. Like many leveraged finance borrowers this year, it has pre-placed the second lien.

Turkey has opened the gates for its second stream of annual bank refinancings, just as the year’s first wave is ending, with Akbank back in the market for a loan.