Europe

Scandic Hotels, the Nordic hotel operator that started taking orders for its IPO on November 17, has released a covered message to investors, a lead banker said on Wednesday.

Abengoa's banks refused it a vital $1.5bn of new loans over the past fortnight, causing its rescue investor Gonvarri to pull out, sources said today. But Abengoa could yet avoid bankruptcy, they argued.

Holders of credit default swaps referencing the Spanish renewable energy company have asked the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) whether there has been a bankruptcy credit event. But Abengoa had not yet formally requested bankruptcy protection as GlobalCapital went to press.

Dometic, the Swedish maker of refrigerators and cookers for camper vans, traded up 15.42% on its first day as a public company on Wednesday, a strong aftermarket performance that recalled other Scandinavian IPOs this year.

OTE, the Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation, returned to the bond market on Tuesday with a €350m four year at a yield of just 4.625%, despite high yield bankers saying the mood in the market was still unstable.

CRH, the Irish building materials group, breezed through the bond new issue market on Wednesday with a deal of over €1bn in euros and sterling.

The yield on Portuguese government debt fell on Wednesday after socialist leader Antonio Costa was named prime minister. The new government is expected to bring some stability after several weeks of uncertainty.

Solvay, the Belgian chemical company, pulled off a triumphant bond financing for its acquisition of Cytec Industries today, issuing five tranches of senior and hybrid bonds that drew €16.85bn of orders in total.

The UK Debt Management Office must raise an additional £4.5bn to meet Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s revised spending as outlined in Wednesday’s Autumn Statement.

Marel, the Icelandic food processing company, has signed €670m of loans that it will use partly to finance the acquisition of Netherlands-based Meats Processing Systems.

Crédit Mutuel-CIC (CM-CIC) and Banca Popolare di Milano (BPIM) issued 10 year covered bonds into relatively weak market conditions on Wednesday. Because of its larger size and tighter spread the French deal was probably the frailer of the two, and while both issuers met their funding targets in terms of size and spread, neither proved particularly popular.

The Swedish central bank published its second stability report of the year and continues to be concerned over high indebtedness and high house prices, factors which are intrinsically connected to the growth of Sweden’s covered bond market. The report follows recent proposals to tighten repo rules affecting covered bonds, proposals which the Swedish FSA and debt office have said are beyond the remit of the independent central bank.