Loans and High Yield

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.

Refinitiv is repricing its €2.33bn term loan 'B', after Bank of America held a lender call on Tuesday to approve the deal. The financial data company is set to be purchased by the London Stock Exchange Group later this year, but is looking to cut the costs of the debt it took on for its 2018 takeover by Blackstone, GIC and CPPIB. A repricing of its $6.5bn term loan before Christmas shaved 50bp off the margin.

Swedish shipping and real estate conglomerate Stena AB is looking to refinance its existing term loan ‘B’, with a combination of loans and bonds in dollars and euros, depending on which pockets of demand prove the most fruitful. It meets investors in the US this week and in Stockholm, Oslo and London next week, with JP Morgan arranging the effort.

A number of Chinese real estate companies kicked off their refinancing for 2020 on Monday, with higher rated issuers tapping longer-dated bonds and the weaker names actively engaging in liability management.