JP Morgan

Eurofins Scientific, the French laboratory testing company, tried and failed to raise €339m of new capital in an overnight block trade on Wednesday night, despite the very strong recent performance of its shares.

Goodyear Dunlop Tires, the US tyre maker, issued €250m of eight year senior notes on Wednesday. The notes are rated Ba1/BB, with a coupon of 3.750% and non-call protection of three years.

David Lloyd Leisure, the TDR Capital-owned UK gym and spa firm, and Cooper, the French pharmaceuticals distributor, widened loan pricing this week as the leveraged market became increasingly selective.

David Lloyd Leisure, the TDR Capital owned UK gym and spa firm, is widening pricing on its £380m debt offering after prospective lenders missed the Tuesday commitments deadline.

Two Indian healthcare companies closed extremely successful IPOs on Thursday, with Alkem Laboratories and Dr Lal Pathlabs fully covered mid-way through bookbuilding. And with India’s equity capital market buzzing with activity, bankers are telling their clients to seize the day before uncertainty sets in, writes John Loh.

Russian steel company Evraz has set the yield on a long five year benchmark at 8.25% area, a level that bankers away from the deal said was roughly in line with where he calculated fair value for the bond.

Kuwait petrochemicals firm Equate has delayed signing $6bn of loans until next week because the firm’s board members are still waiting on approvals, said bankers.

The equity-linked market in Europe has been quiet since Total SA’s $1.2bn deal on November 25, but on Wednesday a very different deal was executed successfully by Basilea Pharmaceutica, a small and still unprofitable Swiss drug company.

Any bankers who had written off December for corporate bond issuance were forced to eat their words today, when Vonovia, the German housing company, issued a €3bn deal to finance its hostile takeover bid for Deutsche Wohnen, and won a book of over €7bn.

Cooper, the French pharmaceuticals distributor, has priced the term loan ‘B’ for its acquisition by Charterhouse at 475bp over Euribor, with an original issue discount of 99.5, the wide end of initial talk that began at 450bp.

Corporate bond bankers are busy, for this time of year. While they are usually up for doing deals, it is clear investors, too, are in no hurry to close their books for the year, but are keen to buy paper, despite the let-down of the European Central Bank’s lukewarm QE boost last week.

Latvia has provided the only point of CEEMEA new issue activity this week so far, though the sovereign is shifting out of the emerging market universe.