Loans and High Yield

Sirius Minerals, the company that is building a giant fertiliser mine beneath the UK's North York Moors, faces up to six months of uncertainty after it failed to issue a $500m high yield bond that would have secured its financial future, and the UK government refused to provide support to the project. Karoliina Liimatainen and Aidan Gregory report.

Shandong Iron & Steel Group Co has made its annual return to the bond market, grabbing $500m thanks to support from foreign fund managers.

The £4bn take-private of UK aerospace and defence company Cobham by US private equity firm Advent, backed by a £2.5bn debt package, was threatened this week when business secretary Andrea Leadsom ordered an investigation into the deal just after 93% of the shareholders voted to accept the deal.

Upstream oil and gas company ENN Ecological Holdings Co priced a $250m tap of a bond it sold earlier this year. The deal came after news of a share transfer that could give it effective control over sister company ENN Energy Holdings.

Azure Power Global pulled off an unusually large price tightening on its $350m green bond, which was buoyed by strong investor demand for a rare issuance from the Indian renewable energy sector.

Lai Sun Development, a Hong Kong-listed property developer and investor, has sealed a hugely popular HK$3.6bn ($460m) four year green loan to finance the Hong Kong Ocean Park Marriott Hotel.

China’s Wolong Electric Group has closed its €150m debut offshore borrowing with 14 lenders.

Sirius Minerals is in big trouble, and that means big losses ahead for the mainly retail investor base, who saw their shares dive 50% on Tuesday morning. Since the crisis, regulators have strained every nerve to keep complex, risky products out of retail hands — while retail investors have merrily piled into loss-making tech stocks and cryptocurrencies, and gambled on extractive industries. How much protection do they need?

Shares in fertilizer miner Sirius Minerals plummeted as much as 60% on Tuesday morning after the company was forced to finally pull a $500m high yield bond offering it had postponed in August.

Socam Development, part of the Shui On Group, became a victim of a weak market backdrop this week, pulling a planned dollar bond after investors balked at its pricing expectations. Addison Gong reports.

French telecommunications company Altice France added another €1bn to its bond package, taking advantage of the historically issuer-friendly market conditions. The tranches were finalised after the European Central Bank announced a new round of stimulus, pushing down bond yields across the board.

Global Cloud Xchange (GCX), a subsidiary of India’s Reliance Communications, has filed for bankruptcy protection with a US court, and plans to carry out a potential debt-to-equity swap that could reduce its bond debt by $150m.