Goldman Sachs

The euro SSA market reacted with commendable calmness to the Dow Jones’s worst day in six years on Monday but moves in the secondary market on Thursday showed that “vol isn’t dead”, according to one head of SSA DCM.

Hurtigruten, the Norwegian cruise operator owned by TDR Capital, has agreed on final pricing on a €660m leveraged loan facility, raising enough debt to repay all its high yield bonds.

American issuers old and new enjoyed the benefits of the euro investment grade corporate bond market in 2017. In comparison, 2018 has been very quiet so far, but some bankers do not expect that situation to remain for much longer.

United Utilities became the third UK corporate issuer to sell a sterling bond in 2018, when it printed a seven year deal 24 hours later than initially planned. The company held an investor call on Monday, but then paused for a day due to global markets' volatility, before launching the deal on Wednesday.

Italian high speed train operator Italo pulled its IPO on Wednesday night, the day before the syndicate was due to release a price range, of €1.5bn to €1.6bn, in order to take a €1.98bn offer from New-York based private equity firm Global Infrastructure Partners.

Global stock markets have suffered from volatility in recent trading sessions but European primary leveraged finance markets had already slowed down as investor pressure grew around a €1.4bn deal for storage firm Algeco Scotsman and the worrying performance of UK retailer New Look.

Aster DM Healthcare is finally set to launch its Rp9.8bn ($152.7m) IPO, having once again scaled back the deal size and changed the syndicate.

A buoyant January in equities markets has been followed by a difficult start to February, with the first IPOs out of a full pipeline seeing some issues in marketing just as stock markets tumble across the globe.

A pair of dollar deals on Wednesday showcased what bankers felt was a theme during a week with a volatile market backdrop, as a top tier name tightened pricing and was comfortably oversubscribed, while a second tier issuer was able to get a deal away but could not move in from price thoughts.

A group of five banks has agreed to underwrite UK garages company EG Group’s $2.15bn purchase of US firm Kroger’s convenience store business, after the equity market wobbles this week failed to put a dent in the year’s M&A extravaganza.

United Utilities became the third corporate issuer to sell a sterling bond in 2018, when it printed a seven year deal 24 hours later than initially planned. The company held an investor call on Monday, but then paused for a day due to global markets' volatility, before launching the deal on Wednesday.

The plunge in global stock prices has only caused the European investment grade corporate bond market to close for one day. On Wednesday, two pharmaceutical companies from different ends of the the ratings spectrum brought multi-tranche deals which attracted more than €9.5bn of combined demand.