JP Morgan

Investors gobbled up a high yield bond offering by US plastic packaging company Berry on Thursday, encouraging the company to increase the size twice, eventually reaching over €1bn. Berry is the only speculative grade company to issue a major bond this week in Europe, as most issuers stayed away from a market anxious about the UK general election.

Investec has entered the loan market for the third time this year, taking a $450m two year term loan from a range of international lenders.

OneConnect Financial Technology Co, a unit of Chinese conglomerate Ping An Group, reduced the size and price range of its New York Stock Exchange listing on Wednesday, a day before it was to be priced.

French insurance firm Scor made good use of quiet conditions in the FIG market this week, tapping a restricted tier one (RT1) bond — the first ever in dollars — for another $125m.

Health and Happiness International Holdings, a China-based supplier of paediatric nutritional and baby care products, has increased the size of its loan to $675m on strong demand.

Another packaging company is hunting for better financing terms in the issuer-friendly European high yield bond market. Berry Global follows companies such as Crown, Ball, Smurfit Kappa, Owen-Illinois and Ardagh with an ambitious refinancing that could be priced as early as Thursday — the day of the UK general election.

The Netherlands’ Prosus has raised its takeover offer for food delivery firm Just Eat to around £5.1bn. It has brought in a host of banks to finance the bridge facility, but the boss of opposing bidder Takeaway.com called Prosus' bid “derisory”.

GDS Holdings raised $250m from a follow-on offering of new shares on Thursday, according to a term sheet seen by GlobalCapital Asia.

Bank issuers led a flurry of dollar bond deals this week, as they dashed to wrap up funding before year end and ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s final meeting of 2019.

French equipment leasing firm Kiloutou locked in an opportunistic refinancing of its loans with a new dual tranche €820m high yield bond on Thursday, easing its covenant constraints at the expense of adding call protection. At initial talk, the deal appeared to have little pricing rationale, but the market proved keen to support it, and the company added an extra €40m and priced through guidance.

Swedish Export Credit Corporation has grabbed $500m of four year paper in what will almost certainly be the last SSA syndication of 2019.

Swedish Export Credit Corporation appointed banks on Wednesday for the first syndicated public sector dollar bond since mid-November.