Jefferies LLC

The momentum in the equity block trade market since the US presidential election has continued this week, with nearly $1.4bn of issuance, as vendors rush to sell assets before the loss of US distribution for the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday.

Shares in Dometic Group, the Swedish company that makes fridges and freezers for boats and camper vans, fell 3.6% on Tuesday morning after EQT has sold the last of its shares in the company, through an accelerated bookbuild that was covered in half an hour.

Varta AG, the German micro-batteries manufacturer spun out of the historic Varta Group in 2002, has announced the price range for its Frankfurt IPO, aiming to raise €150m.

Greencore Group, the Irish convenience food supplier, has announced plans for a £439m rights issue to partly finance its takeover of Peacock Foods, a US competitor, alongside its preliminary full year results on Monday.

Equity block trade business came back to life this week, as sellers hastened to monetise stakes before the US presidential election.

PNB Housing Finance and Varun Beverages priced their respective IPOs in India at the top of the range this week, fetching Rp41.1bn ($616.9m) between them.

Despite the damage done to this autumn's IPO season, with a string of deals pulled and several trading badly, there is still a handful of flotations in the market, and ECM bankers believe they have a chance of success, writes Aidan Gregory.

Varta AG, the German micro-batteries manufacturer spun out of the historic Varta Group in 2002, has joined the small group of European companies braving the choppy waters of the IPO market.

Euro Garages has widened the discount on its £250m term loan ‘C’ to 97.5, with prospects for sterling issuance less clear following a pulled deal last week.

BNP Paribas is hoping to win more business from private equity firms across its product lines, following the appointment of James Seagrave as global head of financial sponsors.

PureGym, the UK’s largest gym operator, has pulled the plug on its £219m London IPO after finding weak demand, in another blow to the autumn equity capital markets pipeline.

The revival of convertible bond issuance by the traditional issuer base of smaller, riskier companies continued at the end of last week with contrasting deals by Ship Finance International and Recipharm.