ING

ING has made a pair of appointments to bolster its equity capital markets business.

August has been a volatile month in recent years, with the Chinese devaluation last summer and a flare-up in Greece's debt crisis. Yet so far indices have remained stable this time. Stability could also be torpor if primary activity is anything to go by. Just a handful of small European deals in progress show a market in the full grip of the summer slowdown.

Commodities trader Noble Group is in the spotlight again after Fitch and Moody's published divergent ratings on Monday. Fitch took a more benign view on Noble, but Moody's downgraded it to B2 from Ba3 with a negative outlook.

Cineworld, Europe's second largest cinema operator, has increased the size of its revolving credit facility by £25m to fund its acquisition of five UK cinema sites.

France's Danone has completed syndication of $13.1bn of loans to fund the $12.5bn acquisition of North American organic food and drinks company White Wave. But there might not be many more jumbo deals this year, as political volatility looks set to hang over the M&A market for a little longer, writes Robert Cooke.

Auto-parts business Adient on Thursday started pricing a $2bn cross-border bond, attracting high demand for a deal that could be the last high yield offering before the European market breaks for the summer.

The trading and marketing arm of Azeri oil firm Socar is refinancing the $150m loan it signed last year, with ING and Rabobank as bookrunning mandated lead arrangers.

Johnson Control’s automotive business, Adient, on Monday began a roadshow for $2bn-equivalent of high yield notes, with a 17 strong group of bookrunners.

Spain’s Cellnex Telecom, a broadcasting towers business, hit the investment grade and high yield euro markets on Monday, just over six weeks after it roadshowed for the deal.

Goldman Sachs has appointed new sets of co-heads for both leveraged finance capital markets EMEA and for 'growth markets' capital markets.

Mediq, the Dutch pharmaceuticals firm owned by Advent, has launched a €200m dividend recapitalisation, holding an investor call on Wednesday. This follows German industrial services firm Bilfinger offering a €700m term loan at a bank meeting on Tuesday.

Singapore’s Noble Group has sown up its S$719m ($522m) rights offering with a 173.7% oversubscription, according to a stock exchange filing on Monday.