Loans and High Yield

Sustainable finance is bubbling with exciting new initiatives. But making people feel good is not enough. Activity needs to produce results, and so far there is more noise than movement. The tone is far too sedate — it needs some hard core activism to break the torpor.

Warner Music Group has launched a €195m add-on to its 2.625% 2026 notes, originally printed as a €250m deal as the market deteriorated in October last year. It plans to use the new funds to refinance its 2022 notes.

More banks have joined the acquisition loan for the Triton consortium’s buy-out of UK-based satellite tech provider Inmarsat, ahead of Tuesday’s deadline to make a firm offer for the company.

CWT International, a Hong Kong-listed subsidiary of cash-strapped HNA Group, has defaulted on a HK$1.4bn ($179m) loan.

Shriram Transport Finance Co turned to US investors on Monday to help seal a $500m high yield bond, just weeks after selling a $400m Reg S trade.

Three Chinese property companies raised a combined $1.625bn from international bond sales on Monday, continuing the flow of high yield paper into the offshore market.

Enel and NextEra Energy have, on a pilot basis, become the first companies to obtain one of S&P Global’s new ESG Evaluations. The product, launched last week, takes S&P into direct competition with providers of ESG ratings like MSCI and Sustainalytics — and with Moody’s, which a few days after S&P’s launch acquired Vigeo Eiris, the French-based ESG rating firm.

Europcar has launched a €450m high yield bond to refinance its 2022s and likely cut coupon costs, as yields have come down for senior unsecured debt amid a dearth of bond supply.

Nyrstar, the zinc and lead mining and processing firm, has reached a deal with some of its creditors in which Trafigura, the commodities trader that owns a 25% stake, could take the whole firm private following a scheme of arrangement.

Moody’s has acquired a majority stake in Vigeo Eiris, the environmental, social and governance research and ratings provider, as the credit rating agencies move increasingly into the area of ESG investing. The announcement comes just days after S&P Global launched its new ESG Evaluation product.

The US’s Catalent will buy Paragon Bioservices in a debt and equity financed $1.2bn deal, as consolidation in the gene therapy market builds pace.

Yuyao Shuncai Investment Holding Co returned to the market for its second dollar bond sale on Friday, raising $100m from the quick trade to cap of a busy week of new issuance.