Europe

Ineos Styrolution this week completed a loan refinancing with margins well below the 350bp market average for new deals — but the pricing will be replicated by the leveraged market’s top credits, said market participants.

Alliance Data Systems Corporation (ADSC) raised €400m from a high yield bond on Thursday, taking euro issuance from US companies to 20% of all European sales in the asset class so far this year.

Azerbaijan’s Southern Gas Corridor Company raised $1bn with a tap of its outstanding 2026s on Wednesday but fell foul to underlying rate movements which meant that it did not price at the tight end of guidance, according to a lead banker.

Countrywide, the UK estate agency group that owns Hamptons International and listings website Rightmove, raised £37.8m of new equity in an intraday sale on Thursday to strengthen its balance sheet after a drop in profits.

Axa IM has launched a European corporate high yield bond fund that plans a buy-and-hold approach through to its maturity in 2023.

The Republic of Croatia has picked four banks to revive a euro benchmark deal it was forced to delay last year after anti-government protests in Zagreb in the early summer.

Turkey’s Garanti Bank on Thursday joined the pre-Fed rate rise rush to open books on a senior six year bond with a 35bp-40bp premium.

Nykredit Realkredit found weaker conditions on its return to the senior resolution note format on Thursday, having recently updated its issuance programme to make sure the bonds will become "non-preferred" senior if Denmark changes its insolvency law.

Ship financing has been through a torrid time as falling prices have tested and broken the business models of the main German lenders — and so the ship-backed Pfandbrief market has virtually run aground. But Danmarks Skibskredit, an established Danish shipping lender with a strong track record, is mulling a euro-denominated shipping covered bond, and trying to change investors' views of the product, delegates heard at the LBBW covered bond forum on Thursday.

Russia is continuing to open its doors to international lenders, with Credit Bank of Moscow seeking to launch a syndicated loan of $350m-$400m.

If it cannot find a buyer, the UK’s capital-strapped Co-operative Bank is considering raising fresh share capital and swapping any of its senior or subordinated bonds into equity. The firm also announced plans for a tier two sale in 2018 should the recapitalisation prove successful.

Toronto Dominion had less luck than its Canadian peers when it issued the third sterling Canadian covered bond of the year this week. Even though the transaction offered a hefty concession there was only sufficient demand to issue in half the size of the previous deals.