Pre-migration untagged articles

The fate of US financial institutions, and in particular the two embattled government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has dominated the synthetic credit markets again this week.

Cargill, the US food and commodities group, made its debut in the Thai baht market on Tuesday, pricing a Bt3.5bn three year deal. After three weeks of marketing, lead manager Citigroup opened and closed the books on Tuesday, bucking political instability to price the issue at 85bp over the government benchmark. Read EuroWeek on Friday for a full reaction to the deal, and to find out what it means for the queue of international borrowers eyeing the Thai market.

National Foods, a subsidiary of Japan’s Kirin, agreed on Monday to buy Australia’s largest milk processor, Dairy Farmers, for A$910m.The acquisition implies a multiple of 12.8 times fiscal Ebitda while the price tag includes an equity value of around A$675m while the rest (A$235m) is debt. Find out more details of the financing in this week’s EuroWeek.

Issuers looking to avoid next week’s heavy data schedule are hitting the markets this week, giving observers a strong indication of the likely premiums and levels of demand for corporates in Europe. Philip Morris is in the market with a dual tranche deal with price talk on the three year part at 100bp area over mid-swaps and the seven year at 135bp-140bp over mid-swaps. The deal follows yesterday’s Eu2bn dual tranche issue from E.On and GE Capital’s Eu1bn 10 year bond. Read EuroWeek on Friday to learn more about these transactions and the other deals expected to hit the market.

Two small deals, both of $250m or less, have meant that this last week of the summer in the US high grade debt market is not a total blank. But, increasingly, eyes turn towards September and what shape the market will be in to receive the traditional deluge of issuance

South Africa’s second largest pharmaceutical company Adcock Ingram this week debuted on the Johannesburg stock market after being spun off from consumer goods group Tiger Brands. Meanwhile, new shares in Kenya Commercial Bank started trading on Monday in Nairobi after the bank’s successful rights issue closed last month. In the deal KCB had expanded its share capital by Sh5.5bn ($83m) for its planned expansion in East Africa. Turn to EuroWeek on Friday for more on Africa’s equity market.

General syndication of the £730m facility backing Lion Capital’s £1.1bn buyout of FoodVest, a frozen food company, is due to launch this week, after soft syndication of the deal began in June. The facility is being led by JP Morgan, and it’s one of the first in a number of transactions expected to launch in time for September.

The European Investment Bank yesterday followed Rentenbank and the EBRD in tapping the short end of the dollar curve, and achieved record-tight pricing in the process. The EIB’s $4bn three-year attracted $8.2bn of orders — the largest ever order book for an SSA issuer in dollars — and was priced at mid-swaps minus 35bp. Read EuroWeek on Friday to learn more about how European SSAs are exploiting the widening in swap spreads to print tight deals.

The fate of US financial institutions still dominates the hearts and minds of global credit default swap dealers. This week the situation looked slightly less apocalyptic, with Lehman Brothers rumoured to be selling mortgage backed assets and Citi analysts suggesting that the GSEs might be able to tough it out alone

Swiss francs continued to attract issuers this morning as Pfandbriefzentrale der Schweizerischen Kantonalbanken priced a dual tranche deal. Sfr410m matures in 2013, and Sfr140m in 2017, paying coupons of 3% and 3.125% respectively.

Germany’s Deutsche Bahn added five more banks to the syndicate running its IPO, mandating BNP Paribas, Commerzbank, DZ Bank, Merrill Lynch and WestLB as co- managers. The recent nominations add to the four lead managers and five co-leads already chosen. The DB Mobility IPO will come to market as early as mid-October and will be the largest in Germany since the privatisation of Deutsche Post eight years ago.