Europe
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French government bonds and covered bonds strengthened on Monday providing an improved backdrop for all European issuers this week. But with ‘fat tail’ risk bubbling just below the surface, borrowers are being advised to press ahead with funding plans without delay. -
Swiss petrochemicals firm Ineos priced a €4.5bn-equivalent four tranche term facility refinancing at the tight end of guidance on Monday, taking advantage of a leveraged loan market where abundant demand and scarce new paper is grinding down margins and encouraging a wave of refinancings.
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Metalloinvest, the Russian steel manufacturer, has extended the maturity of a revolving credit facility on better terms and boosted its size.
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The Co-operative Bank put itself up for sale on Monday, but the ailing UK lender is also considering another debt-for-equity swap to build capital and avoid intervention from the Bank of England.
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Shares in DFS Furniture, the UK sofa retailer, rose 4.2% on Friday after its private equity owner Advent International sold its last shares in the company for £58.5m after the expiry of a lock-up and the release of DFS’s first half results earlier in the day.
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This week's funding scorecard looks at the progress French agencies have made with their funding plans so far in 2017.
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French covered bond issuer BPCE attracted almost €1.4bn of demand for its seven year as the need to price over OATs conferred a generous new issue premium. But with French covered bonds trading much tighter than OATs in the 10 year tenor there is a growing sense that a new 10 year issue could soon price much tighter than France.
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BC Partners has hired the former president and chief investment officer of Apollo Investment Corp to head its own newly opened credit platform.
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China
While all eyes are focused on the Brexit process, the Bank of England (BoE) has quietly begun publishing numbers that support London's claim to be the leading RMB hubs in Europe. Meanwhile, market participants continue debate the relevance of the upcoming China-London Connect scheme.
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UniCredit announced an €11.8bn loss on Thursday as expected, paving the way for its €13bn rights issue and fifth shot at a transformational rescue. The bank said it had signed agreements preparing for 14,000 redundancies, but away from this carnage, the underlying businesses appeared to stay strong.
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