Loans and High Yield

Barcelona-headquartered paper company Lecta is appealing to bondholders as it tries to strengthen its capital structure. Its bonds are now trading in the 30s while the CVC-sponsored company has fully used its revolving credit facility and is running out of external sources of financing.

ING and RiverRock have struck a deal to give the asset manager access to ING’s pipeline of senior loans, as part of the launch of RiverRock’s debut senior loan fund. The Dutch bank, unlike other commercial banks, committed to avoid cherry-picking its pipeline, and to show RiverRock everything that was eligible for the fund.

JP Morgan has hired Nomura’s Ryan Dawson as a managing director in its leveraged finance origination team, covering sponsors in EMEA and sponsors and corporates in the UK.

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.