JP Morgan

The European leveraged finance market is heating up, as long-awaited deals for the buyouts of UK plastics company RPC and German online listings firm Scout24 break cover. The two chunky deals will deliver much needed new money supply after a sluggish start to the year.

State oil company Saudi Aramco is expected to tap the bond market in the next fortnight for a deal that could be anywhere in the region of $7bn-$15bn, according to bankers in the region away from the deal. Estimates of the premium Aramco will have to pay over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia curve is being discussed as negative to plus 15bp, depending on the size of the deal.

Chinese streaming platform iQiyi, which is backed by internet giant Baidu, tapped the equity-linked market this week with a record-breaking deal — the largest American Depository Shares (ADS) convertible bond — and could help boost issuance in the asset class. Jonathan Breen reports.

Telecoms company Cable & Wireless, which operates mostly in the Caribbean, added $300m to its longest dated bond on Wednesday in a deal that received strong backing from US high yield buyers.

Evraz raised $700m with a five year bond on Wednesday as it returned to the fixed income market for the first time in two years. The company used the proceeds to finance a tender offer of its April 2020s.

Alrosa, the world’s largest diamond mining business by carat volume, embarked on investor meetings on Tuesday to market a dollar benchmark Reg S/144A senior bond.

Romania has released initial price guidance for its euro triple tranche bond, a deal which is expected to total over €2bn and includes the sovereign’s first ever euro 30 year bond.

Chinese streaming platform iQiyi bagged $1.05bn on Tuesday after tapping the equity-linked bond market for a second time, pricing the deal at the issuer-friendly end of guidance.

JP Morgan has appointed Paul Uren to replace the outgoing co-head of global investment banking coverage for Asia Pacific, according to an internal memo seen by GlobalCapital Asia.

Land Berlin saw orderbooks swell to around four times the size of its €500m no-grow trade on Tuesday, with leads saying the 15 year maturity is the sweet spot to attract bank treasuries.

After six months running the Uzbekistan’s newly created debt management office, ex-HSBC DCM banker Odilbek Isakov has become the country's deputy finance minister.

British life insurer and asset manager Prudential Corp Holdings is offloading a chunk of shares in its Indian joint venture ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co and is looking to bag at least Rp11.2bn ($162.6m).