Loans and High Yield

Crossover credit Cellnex, the Spanish mobile phone mast owner, offered investment grade bond investors the chance to pick up some spread on Thursday, while unrated Air France-KLM waits in the wings.

Shares in Sirius Minerals, the UK firm that is battling to build a mine for polyhalite fertiliser beneath the North York Moors, rallied significantly on Wednesday after the company said it was in advanced takeover discussions with Anglo American.

Chinese real estate issuers dominated the dollar bond market this week, with 16 developers pricing deals by Wednesday. Ample liquidity and a risk-on sentiment allowed most issuers to go long and cheap, but the mid-week volatility in the global market proved costly to some companies, writes Addison Gong.

RBC Capital Markets has continued the development of its leveraged finance business by hiring Craig Campbell from HSBC.

Corporate bond investors in Europe are strapping in for a busy few weeks, though some have redoubled their call for issuers to offer shorter maturity debt.

Altice has announced a refinancing for its units in Portugal, Israel and Domican Republic, targeting €2.75bn-equivalent of new senior secured bonds across euros and dollars in five year non-call two and eight year non-call three format.

Seven Chinese real estate issuers followed five of their peers to the offshore debt market on Tuesday, marking the busiest start to the year for the Asian bond market.

India’s Syndicate Bank has closed its $100m borrowing, with the lead bank selling the entire amount to three participants.

Kentucky-based specialty chemicals company Ashland is marketing a €500m eight year non-call unsecured high yield issue, the first proper deal of the year in European high yield, as part of its efforts to clean up its capital structure and switch to an unsecured financing profile.

New leveraged loan supply has started strong, despite geopolitical jitters leading to softness in the public markets, and it’s not just play-it-safe refi issues. Cision is marketing dual-currency acquisition debt for Platinum Equity’s takeover of the public relations technology firm, while Global University Systems is prepping a deal of nearly €1bn to fund a dividend. Also in the loan market are Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics and Refinitiv’s euro repricing, while Stena and Ashland have mandated potential bond deals.

Premier Oil has become the first company to announce a major ECM transaction in 2020, a £385m ($500m) capital increase to repay debt and finance the acquisition of two UK North Sea oilfields from BP.

HSBC Germany has hired Heiko Mittelhamm as head of M&A for Germany and Austria.