Loans and High Yield

Amélie Négrier-Oyarzabal has joined Greenhill & Co as head of France, and will lead the opening of a Paris office.

Sterling has dropped to levels not seen since the 1980s, making UK assets seem cheap to international buyers. But that is unlikely to be the driver of the recent crop of UK M&A.

Crédit Agricole CIB has appointed Pierre-Francois Martineau as a managing director in the bank’s new leveraged and telecom finance group (LTFG) in Paris.

A slump in syndicated loan activity in Asia has put pressure on banks to offer juicy terms to borrowers seeking leveraged deals, including lower pricing and weaker structures. But the dearth of issuance won’t last long, leaving just a short window for borrowers to take advantage of.

Chinese sportswear manufacturer Xtep International Holdings has closed its refinancing loan at HK$1.8bn ($229.5m) with nine banks.

Two near-investment grade industrials made a splash in the high yield bond market on Monday, with both Smurfit Kappa and Thyssenkrupp getting their order books oversubscribed multiple times.

Troubled airline Norwegian Air Shuttle has offered high yield bondholders security over its take-off and landing rights at London’s Gatwick Airport, in exchange for agreeing to extend the maturity of the debt.

Swedish private equity firm EQT confirmed on Monday that it is seeking to list on the Nasdaq Stockholm, becoming the second issuer to announce it aims to test Europe’s IPO market this autumn.

China’s Suning Financial Services, a subsidiary of home appliance retailer Suning Holdings Group, has closed a HK$1.63bn ($208m) three year loan.

Existing shareholders were shown no mercy as Thomas Cook’s creditors and Chinese conglomerate Fosun reached an initial £900m agreement to recapitalise the company and divide up the assets. The creditors get most of the healthier airline business, while Fosun takes the bulk of the declining package holiday business.

Europe’s patchwork of insolvency laws gives canny corporates and creditors the chance to pick the jurisdiction they want to use. That leads to absurd outcomes — and the sooner it ends, the better.

The European high yield bond market was built on telecoms companies, but in the last month their share has shrunk, as several have shored up their capital structures ahead of the heavy financial lifting set to be required for 5G infrastructure. More than €10bn of high yield bonds are likely to be repaid, leaving investors sitting on piles of cash going into September.