Loans and High Yield

The recent surge of primary action in European high yield suffered a blow on Monday when Verallia pulled its €500m pay-if-you-can (PIYC) bond. But the market trotted on and kept its momentum.

Necta & Wittenborg Global Vending, the Italo-German vending machine maker, kicked off October for the euro high yield market, which printed €16bn of deals during the previous month.

Hellenic Petroleum on Thursday opened books for a new euro bond to redeem its 8% 2017s, with coupon guidance already some 200bp tighter than the old notes.

A handful of Chinese companies have registered their plans to sell offshore foreign currency bonds with the National Development and Reform Commission, with potential issuers ranging from state-linked entities, government financing vehicles and corporates.

Hong Kong-listed ITC Properties Group became the only international debt issuer from Greater China this week, selling its notes during the country’s week-long national holiday.

Avolon Holdings, indirectly owned by China’s HNA Group, has tapped Morgan Stanley and UBS to provide $8.5bn of debt for the acquisition of the aircraft leasing business of CIT Group.

Bridgepoint-owned Pret A Manger and Civen-owned Ufinet both allocated dividend recapitalisations on Thursday, while another Bridgepoint-owned firm, Element Materials, released price talk on a proposed repricing of its buyout loans signed only in February.

The UK government has lent its voice to the growing current of international opinion that expansive monetary policy has gone far enough, and may even be harming growth. Britain is set to embark on a fiscal stimulus, likely to be welcomed by financial markets.

The euro high yield market in September reached the highest volume of bond sales on record for the past 18 months, according to research house CreditSights, but not all data was so encouraging.

A recent fine by US regulators on the New York branch of Mega International Commercial Bank has led to demands for overseas branches of Taiwanese lenders to collect more comprehensive information about their clients. This is causing fears that the credit approval process for syndicated loans will lengthen, while banks will also find it tricky to lend to smaller borrowers. Shruti Chaturvedi reports.

Details about a $350m-$400m financing for private equity firm Permira’s acquisition of corporate services provider Tricor Group have emerged.

German film packaging manufacturer Klockner Pentaplast launched a $1.05bn-equivalent loan refinancing with a lender call on Wednesday afternoon as it looks to tap into the trend of tightening prices.