Coronavirus

Equity investors remain fully committed to backing capital raised for companies wishing to repair their balance sheets but they are far more discerning when being asked to look at secondary sell-downs, given worries that equity markets are overinflated and their desire to save capital for primary deals.

The UK Debt Management Office has picked the banks to lead the sale of its new October 2061 conventional Gilt, which will be its second of an unprecedented two syndications in a single calendar month.

Macau casino operator SJM Holdings is in talks with lenders for covenant waivers on a HK$25bn ($3.2bn) facility, as it faces delays over opening a new resort in Asia’s gambling hub.

Yihua Enterprise Group Co has defaulted on a Rmb1bn ($141m) domestic bond. It blamed the missed interest payment on the Covid-19 pandemic, but its financial health has been in question since last year.

China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec) priced a $3bn bond through its curve on Wednesday after investors flocked to the triple-tranche transaction, leading to a peak book of $23bn.

GlobalCapital and Standard Chartered hosted a virtual roundtable in mid-April to discuss the changes China's high yield issuers have faced in 2020 — and the challenges they will have to contend with for the rest of the year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Chile priced the tightest EM sovereign bond in the Covid-19 era on Tuesday, selling a dollar deal flat or inside its curve and tight to where neighbouring rival Peru had issued last month.

The top tier of emerging market companies and sovereigns are funding themselves at near pre-coronavirus levels, but there is stark inequality in the market. The vast majority of EM corporates will have to sit out a while longer as funding costs remain prohibitively high for triple- and double-B rated issuers, writes Oliver West.

US and European airlines and aircraft makers have had contrasting experiences in the capital markets during the Covid-19 pandemic, highlighting the two continents’ different corporate finance cultures, as well as the way central bank support is being received in the market, writes Mike Turner.

Issuance in the financial institutions bond market had a preferred senior flavour this week, with issuers finding this the most cost-effective funding compared with other asset classes. In addition, some of them can use it to fulfil regulatory requirements.

Hertz, Avis and Europcar are all facing the same problem. Nobody is travelling, and so nobody is renting cars. Vast airport car parks full of ready-to-go rental cars stand idle, and cash flows at all three companies have stopped almost dead. But they have fared very differently — from near-bankruptcy to leaning hard on government.

Instituto de Crédito Oficial (Ico) was almost seven times covered for its four year Covid-19 social bond on Wednesday, as investors continue to support deals to tackle the pandemic. The European Stability Mechanism could follow with a similar maturity next week, after it sent banks a request for proposals (RFP).