Loans and High Yield

China Logistics Property Holdings Co (CNLP) and Future Land Holdings Co both sold bonds with less than one year tenors on Thursday, sidestepping the Chinese regulator’s tight handle on offshore fundraising.

Car rental service provider CSM Corporatama, better known as Indorent, has reached out to lenders for a $100m syndicated loan, said bankers who received a preliminary email asking them to attend a roadshow.

Blackstone announced its biggest acquisition for a decade this week, as it swooped on Thomson Reuters' data business for an enterprise value of $20bn. That left financiers waiting to see if it kick-starts a new round of big leveraged buyouts (LBOs) among private equity firms sitting on mountains of uninvested cash. Michael Turner and Victor Jimenez report.

Buyers of high yield bonds in the European markets speaking to GlobalCapital this week sent two messages: overall demand is strong, but investors are searching for different targets.

Europe’s financial system turned a corner this week, as the European Commission declared it would introduce legislation to redirect markets towards sustainability and equip them to face the threat of climate change, writes Jon Hay.

Borrowers issuing sterling bonds with speculative grade ratings should find a receptive market despite the potential fallout of Brexit this year, Moody’s said in a report. It was a sentiment bankers and investors agreed with.

The round of redundancies at Barclays Investment Bank has hit more senior figures, including the head of EMEA leveraged finance, a vice-chairman in ECM, the COO of EMEA banking, as well as other managing directors across the origination businesses.

Chinese property developer Yango Group Co was forced to call off a $250m bond this week, amid heavy Asian dollar bond supply and a spike in US Treasury yields. But while market conditions played their part in the underwhelming demand for the deal, the issuer’s credentials were also called into question. Addison Gong reports.

The London Stock Exchange’s Order book for Retail Bonds (ORB) opened the year with a $180m issue from Burford Capital, the litigation finance firm.

In just over a month, Italy will hold its latest general election. With the polls suggesting a healthy lead for a centre right coalition the effect on investment grade corporate spreads has been negligible so far. However, research house CreditSights believes investors should be looking more closely.

Private equity firm 3i is taking advantage of bullish conditions in the leveraged loan market to launch its fifth dividend recapitalisation of Action, the Dutch non-food discount retailer it bought in 2011.

Asia’s capital markets have started the year with a bang, but a market this good can’t last forever. The steady supply of new deals coming out at increasingly tight levels is a sign of clear frothiness in the market. Just take a look at the investor enthusiasm for low-rated Indonesian deals for an example of how bullish investors have become when they should be thinking twice.