Nordea Markets

Minority shareholders in Evry, a Norwegian IT company controlled by Apax Partners, were dismayed to learn this week that Apax had not told them it planned to extract a €203m dividend from the firm, even as it is trying to buy them out, writes Max Bower.

Dong Energy began the bookbuild for its Copenhagen IPO on Thursday, at a price range of Dkr200 to Dkr255 a share, which would give it a market cap of Dkr83.5bn to Dkr106.5bn ($12.5bn-$16bn).

The Nordic loan market is set to enjoy a bumper second quarter of refinancing, with investment grade companies launching chunky deals ahead of the summer holidays.

Monday night’s three equity block trades in Europe all led to decent trading in the stocks on Tuesday. They included CVC’s exit from Evonik Industries – scooped on a sole basis by JP Morgan, though Bank of America Merrill Lynch has worked on most of these deals.

The Swedish firm Hoist Kredit, a subsidiary of Hoist Finance, on Wednesday sold its €250m bond to refinance a mixture of euro and Swedish krona floating rate notes.

Swedish smelting and mining company Boliden has signed €1.39bn in loans, although the borrower was initially planning a larger deal, said a banker close to the financing.

Evry, the Norwegian IT firm 88% owned by Apax Partners, has bank meetings on Wednesday morning for its €275m equivalent dividend recapitalisation term loan ‘B’.

Arla Foods, the unrated Danish dairy cooperative, on Monday printed Skr1bn of notes, with issuance in the Nordic currency still lagging 28% behind last year’s figures.

Sanoma, the unrated Nordic media group, sold a €200m unsecured bond on Thursday to redeem some of its old notes due next year.

This week’s steady run of one equity block trade a night in the European market continued on Thursday with the biggest deal so far, as Bpifrance, the French state investment fund, launched a €500m sale of more than half its holding in Eiffage, the construction and concessions group.

French cable manufacturer Nexans on Thursday returned to the high yield market with a €250m unsecured note that was withdrawn in May 2015.

Deutsche Bank is in the market this evening with a block trade of about €319m in shares of Euler Hermes, the Paris-listed trade receivables credit insurer. It is the first equity capital markets deal in the stock since 2002.