News content

Royal Bank of Scotland has told bondholders it will buy back any and all of seven notes across sterling, dollars and euros, as the UK bank continues to retreat from certain businesses.

The weakness of the US leveraged finance market was brought home to market participants with a jolt on Tuesday, when the Carlyle Group, which is buying Veritas Technologies, a US data storage company, abandoned its attempt to raise $3.3bn of debt for the deal.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries “just scraped home” with very tight pricing on the $33.75bn loan it signed on Monday. Only around half the banks invited participated because margins were so tight, said a banker close to the deal.

The capital raisings of Greece’s four largest banks, totalling €6bn, continue to dominate the news in equity capital markets this week, though the IPO market is bringing its fair share of deals as well.

Singaporean utility company SP PowerAssets made a rare outing to the dollar bond market on November 18, raising $700m from a tightly priced 10 year note.

Three shareholders in Dongbu Insurance Co are selling shares worth up to W357bn ($305m), in the first block trade exceeding $100m from South Korea in a month.

Citigroup is looking to buy back up to £485m equivalent of senior and subordinated debt across four senior and subordinated securities in sterling and euros.

More details have emerged on Chinese technology firm Tencent Holdings’ $1.25bn loan that went into limited syndication last week.

Hong Kong property company New World Development has picked banks to arrange investor meetings ahead of a proposed dollar offering.

Pfandbriefbank, the Swiss mortgage lender, raised Sfr754m ($748m) in a four tranche bond on Tuesday, drawing a strong demand from insurance investors in the Swiss domestic market.

Flat Glass Group Co has covered books for its HK1.21bn ($155.61m) IPO in Hong Kong, with the trade likely to price in the lower half of its marketing range, said sources close to the situation.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx) plans to extend renminbi settlement operational hours for the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect in April 2016 in a bid to solve the outstanding settlement issues, a senior officer told GlobalRMB at the sidelines of event to celebrate the schemes’ one year anniversary.