Loans and High Yield

China Oriental Group has announced a consent solicitation as well as plans to buy back all or a portion of its existing bonds, following a profit warning sent to its shareholders.

Lippo Karawaci has announced the minimum yield for a new dollar-denominated senior offering due 2023, as it aims to switch holders out of a 2019 bond into a longer four year deal.

Action, the Benelux discount non-food retailer, had bank meetings in London on Tuesday for its €1.2bn all-senior dividend recapitalisation.

The opening shot for the race to save Abengoa from bankruptcy came on Monday from Alvarez & Marsal, the restructuring firm, and its plan to half the Spanish renewable energy company’s corporate debt to €4bn ­— now the board and creditors must approve the scheme before March 28.

LGC, the UK life sciences company being bought by KKR, has tightened price guidance on its €350m euro term loan ‘B’ and accelerated its deadline.

Tata Power subsidiary Bhira Investments, which has picked six lenders to arrange a refinancing of a $460m facility, is stretching the tenor of the new loan to five years.

Chinese hospital group Phoenix Healthcare has terminated an undrawn $150m loan raised in February 2015 due to the instability in the foreign exchange rate.

Hua Han Health Industry Holdings is eyeing the international bond market for the first time, having mandated one bank to work on a dollar-denominated deal.

European high yield trading depends closely on the US secondary market, where liquidity has declined as risk-aversion has deepened in recent months.

Only one lender is understood to have made a commitment to join China Shengmu Organic Milk’s $120m three year facility, which has been in syndication since December.

While almost all financial markets have been stricken with fear so far this year, Europe's leveraged loan market has been surprisingly buoyant, with a healthy flow of deals and plenty of interest from investors — though the sister high yield market is a desert. Max Bower and Victor Jimenez report.

As WTI and Brent crude oil prices slip down below $30, high yield analysts are pointing at Spain’s oil producer Repsol as the first European company that could cross over into the sub-investment grade market.