Loans and High Yield

NH Hotel Group, the Spanish hotel chain, has extended its revolving credit facility, but three lenders have pulled out of the deal, which has been reduced in size by €14m to €236m.

Indian software firm Hexaware Technologies has wrapped up a $600m loan to fund its take-private by Baring Private Equity Asia.

Property company Hengli Group and real estate-focused private equity firm Gaw Capital Partners are taking advantage of a recent regulatory change in Hong Kong to increase a loan closed last year.

UK hospitality companies have been avid users of the US private placement market in the past, but since the coronavirus pandemic began, their businesses have been up-ended, with pubs subject to curfews, social distancing and closures. Fortunately, US PP investors have largely followed bank lenders in opting for leniency, waiving covenants or switching to monitoring minimum levels of liquidity. One firm even managed to raise new debt this summer.

The coronavirus pandemic has subjected the European leveraged loan market, where ‘cov-lite’ documents reign supreme, to a brutal test. The early results are positive.

Ion Investment Group is preparing to combine its Dealogic and Mergermarket units under a single corporate entity, Ion Analytics, and refinance the group’s expensive private debt raised last year with a cheaper, broadly syndicated loan package across dollars and euros. A strong performance over the last year should encourage investors to look past the group’s previous struggles with access to the public markets.

This week in Keeping Tabs: how the European Central Bank could decarbonise its corporate bond book, how digital banks would suffer if the Bank of England goes negative, and what UK financial services policy could look like after Brexit.

A host of Chinese issuers found one of the last windows to sell bonds on Thursday ahead of the US presidential elections at the beginning of November and a public holiday in Hong Kong early next week.

Metals and mining company Vedanta Resources has returned a $1.75bn loan and redeemed a $1.4bn bond after its plan to delist its Indian subsidiary failed to attract enough support.

Chinese property developer Country Garden has closed a $1.5bn-equivalent dual currency loan, attracting seven participants during syndication.

Permira opted to rescue its debt purchasing portfolio company Lowell from the restructuring that many thought was imminent, with the largest slug of equity support any sponsor has injected in Europe since the coronavirus pandemic began. Covid-19 has crushed cashflows for some debt purchasers, but next year should be a bumper year for NPL buying — for those firms with cash to do so, writes Owen Sanderson.

The €2.6bn financing for Adevinta’s purchase of eBay Classifieds looks set to be a blowout success, with sharp tightening across all tranches underlining the bid for quality credits enduring limited pandemic impact. The deal’s double-B rating helps attract rating-sensitive investors who have seen their portfolios pummelled this year by Covid-related downgrades.