Loans and High Yield

HSBC’s new global banking boss has quietly redesigned the division and fleshed out a cohesive corporate finance strategy that plays to its strengths, writes David Rothnie.

US Democrat senator, and presidential hopeful, Elizabeth Warren wants to upend private equity. She has proposed a bill which would stop PE money flowing to some sectors altogether and would send deal numbers and valuations plunging. But it could also lower borrowing costs, reports Karoliina Liimatainen.

Darren Novak, head of activist defence at UBS, has moved from New York to London, with the bank seeing an opportunity to improve its service for European companies seeking to deal with activist investors.

As the market prepares for Libors to end their run as the world’s most prevalent reference rates, there is growing support for the benchmarks to be reprieved.

Country Garden-linked Bright Scholar Education Holdings made its debut in the offshore bond market on Wednesday, raising $300m from a heavily-covered transaction.

The Swedish cosmetics company Oriflame is attempting to charm high yield investors with a €775m bond — but left lead Goldman Sachs is also pitching the issue to emerging market-focused accounts, highlighting the company's extensive business in Asia and Turkey. The founding family of the firm will use the bond to refinance bridge facilities which funded their buyout of the company earlier this year.

It was set of gruelling results for Deutsche Bank’s corporate and investment bank on Wednesday, with revenues from debt underwriting, equity underwriting, advisory and equity trading all underperforming peers that have already posted figures. Meanwhile, the group as a whole recorded substantial charges from its restructuring plans but said this would not impact its capital ratio much.

Vivion, a property company formed in September 2018 and controlled by Israeli tycoon Amir Dayan, is preparing its bond market debut. The funds raised will be used to split the business into a property company (propco) and an operating company (opco), pay off acquisition debt for recently purchased hotels, and reorganise its corporate structure.

Air Baltic, an airline 80% owned by the Latvian government, printed its €200m five year non-call three debut bond on Tuesday from an order book of €300m.

With last week's high yield bonds performing well, a range of new deals has been brought to market to take advantage of strong demand. That was a complete contrast to the investment grade market where no new deals were announced on Wednesday.

Cofco International, a commodities trading unit of China’s agri-products company Cofco, has increased its sustainability-linked loan to $2.3bn after receiving commitments from 21 lenders.

Chinese real estate company Country Garden has closed its $1.1bn-equivalent syndicated loan.