Goldman Sachs

The deal the equity-linked bond market has been awaiting for months has arrived this evening. Bayer, the German life sciences group, has launched a €4bn mandatorily convertible issue as the first part of its $19bn equity financing for its takeover of Monsanto.

The bounce in international equities since the election of Donald Trump as US president was widely expected by market participants to lead to a round of block trades as sellers looked to take advantage of the favourable conditions.

Swedish speciality chemicals group Perstorp priced €1bn-equivalent of high yield bonds on Tuesday, grabbing the attention of investors with triple-C paper against an uncertain backdrop.

As expected, the loans for the leveraged buyout of Polish auction website Allegro are tightly priced, with tenors of six and seven years for less than 400bp.

Shares in Dis-Chem Pharmacies, the South African retail pharmacy group, closed 16% above their offer price on their debut on Friday, after the company had raised R4.38bn ($305m) by pricing its IPO slightly above the middle of its range on Monday.

Norwegian debt manager Lindorff has agreed a €3.4bn bridge-to-bond and a €850m four and a half year super senior credit facility to support its merger with Swedish competitor Intrum Justitia. The combination will create an “undisputed European leader” in debt management, said S&P.

Potential lenders to the Z4.8bn loan for the leveraged buyout of Polish firm Allegro will meet in Warsaw on Thursday where the deal will be launched into general syndication.

Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan became the first banks to hit the dollar market after the election of Donald Trump as US president provided an unexpected fillip to credit markets.

The European high yield market this week proved that it has learned at least one lesson from its Brexit experience: the unexpected does not mean market shutdown.

Dis-Chem Pharmacies, the South African retail pharmacy group, has tightened the price range on its Johannesburg IPO, which values it at up to R16bn ($1.1bn).

Croatian food and drinks maker Agrokor has refinanced €340m of loans from VTB Bank, marking the end of a €840m loan refinancing programme.

UK banks will be allowed to use one year call structures to optimise the capital eligibility of their senior bonds, after the Bank of England published new rules governing the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities (MREL).