Morgan Stanley

The senior unsecured market made up for a slow start to the week on Wednesday as three deals hit screens. Lloyds was able to draw a hefty order book for a seven year fixed rate print, while Danske Bank and Morgan Stanley sold floating rate notes.

E-commerce firm Alibaba Group, which signed a $3bn revolving facility with four lenders on August 30, has allocated the financing following a limited syndication. The loan, which features looser covenants than Alibaba’s last fundraising, has set a precedent for future financings by the company, as well as for revolving credit facilities in Asia.

Beijing-based Momo, a mobile-based social networking platform, is looking to raise at least $300m from an IPO on the Nasdaq and has filed a preliminary prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Council of Europe crowned a week of tightly priced deals from high quality issuers in dollars with the first benchmark to reach the five year point of the curve since the dollar market was engulfed in volatility in mid-October. Sweden kicked off proceedings with an oversubscribed three year that came at the deepest level through mid-swaps for a deal of that tenor all year.

Ireland took a firm step towards joining the eurozone core this week by extending its curve to 15 years with a bond that market participants said was the clearest sign yet that it was pulling away from the rest of the periphery. But the gap between Europe’s top borrowers and weakest names may be about to narrow further very soon. This could be in response to moves by European Central Bank president, Mario Draghi, who opened the door a little further to full blown quantitative easing.

French telecoms group Altice announced its €7bn offer to buy the Portuguese assets of Portugal Telecom from Oi, the Brazilian telecoms company, on Monday, firing the first round in what looks to be a political bidding war.

UK cinema chain Vue has issued €70m of six year senior secured floating rate notes to back its acquisition of Space Cinemas.

United Internet — Marine Harvest — Heathrow

Alliance Boots’ £12bn leveraged buyout in 2007 was a titanic and totemic deal, which symbolised the height of the pre-crisis LBO wave. This week, the financing was done that will remove the UK pharmacy group’s name from the corporate landscape, merging it with US chain Walgreens into WBA — Walgreens Boots Alliance.

Shenzhen International Holdings raised $250m via a top-up placement on the evening of November 4, managing to exercise an increase option thanks to two days of wall-crossing ahead of the trade.

E-commerce firm Alibaba Group, which signed a $3bn revolving facility with four lenders on August 30, has completed a limited syndication of the financing. The facility features looser covenants than its last loan and marked the first US style revolver in Asia, said a banker on the deal.

Jens Nystedt has joined Morgan Stanley Investment Management as managing director in the emerging markets debt team, where he will focus on local market debt and strategy development.