Loans and High Yield

Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) has launched a $700m multi-tranche loan into general syndication, raising some debate among bankers about the tight pricing on offer.

Indian and Indonesian dollar bonds were buoyed last week by positive investor sentiment that drove secondary market trading and paved the way for fresh debt issuance.

All eyes were on Sunac China Holdings on Thursday when it executed a deal that was six times covered at its peak. Despite the competition, Redco Properties Group also managed to walk away with a new bond, thanks to the flexibility of the 364-day format.

Indonesian textile company Sri Rejeki Isman (Sritex) has returned to the syndications market for a $350m loan that will go partly towards a bond buy-back.

Investors in the leveraged finance market established a new trade body this week, giving them the chance to push back against aggressive covenant terms, and offering an alternative forum to the Association for Financial Markets in Europe, increasingly dominated by the sell side following a mass walk-out by the buy side last year.

Fitch Ratings has remedied its long lack of a visible response to the rise of environmental, social and governance investing by launching a set of ESG relevance scores.

China’s Road King Infrastructure nabbed $400m from a bond that was priced 50bp inside of initial guidance, on the back of the largest order book for an Asian deal recently.

Belgian private equity firm Cobepa is funding its acquisition of Scalian, the engineering consultancy, with two French investment banks.

Anta Sports Products has launched its €2.2bn loan to back the acquisition of Amer Sports Oyj into general syndication, with HSBC joining the bookrunning group.

Leveraged finance industry bodies are a changin’. The two main trade organisations led by the sell side are set to open talks with a new, more independent investor lobby taking its first steps on Wednesday.

At first look, a high new issue premium makes a corporate bond deal look cheap for investors. However, the negative effect that premium can have on an issuer’s outstanding bonds can prove to outweigh the cheapness of the new deal for an issuer’s long term backers.

Railway and toll road constructor Shandong Hi-Speed Group became the latest issuer to opt for a short tenor for its bond this week, in a bid to speed up the issuance process while keeping the yield low.