Search results for

British Telecommunications on Monday raised a further £890m from its tender offer, after confounding critics by achieving an 89.5% take-up for its £5.9bn rights issue. Successful completion of the deal was vital for the embattled telco which is attempting to cut its debt mountain and restore its credibility in both debt and equity markets. The initial rights issue was priced at a 47% discount to the share price before Merrill Lynch and Cazenove launched the deal on May 10.

Helaba is expected to launch the long awaited DM1.1bn leveraged loan backing Apax Partners' purchase of German state printing press Bundesdrückerei to the market on June 27. The bank won the mandate to arrange the financing in December last year. However, the deal was delayed and then increased from DM900m following Apax Partners' acquisition of UK company Security Printing Systems (SPS) through the Bundesdrückerei holding company. The loan was then held until the jumbo facility for Messer Griesheim cleared the market, which it did last week when the loan went free to trade.

Caixa Geral de Depositos is set to issue a ¥300 million ($2.43 million) note on June 21. The MTN matures on February 21 2031. The note pays interest singularly and has a final coupon of 4.000%. The issuer follows this trade a week later by a ¥500 million ($4.05 million) note that reaches out to July 7 2021. The note pays interest singularly and has a final coupon of 4.010%.

Cadbury Schweppes has dropped ABN Amro and Toronto Dominion Bank as dealers from its £

Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Madrid (Caja Madrid) launched a benchmark cédulas hipotecarias transaction yesterday (Thursday), awakening the dormant covered bond sector. Joint books Barclays Capital, CDC, Caja Madrid, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstien and SG will price the Eu1bn 15 year offering today (Friday) at 14bp over mid-swaps.

* Landesbank Baden-Württemberg Rating: Aaa/AAA/AAA

Moscow Narodny Bank (MNB) has become the first Russia linked credit to enter the market since the August 1998 collapse of the Russian government GKO bond market. The bond is a $100m three year FRN, offering a coupon of Libor plus 200bp, and was priced at a discount to give a total spread of 270bp. "This is a risk-mitigated Russian credit, which proves that the market is open to Russian names," said Tim Kennedy of UBS Warburg origination in London. "This bond has been placed in the banking market, where MNB's name is very well known, having operated in London since 1919."

Credit Suisse First Boston has followed up its successful Eu2bn secondary offering of Alstom in February with a further placement of Eu800m of the stock. The offering was described by a banker who worked on the deal as "quite unprecedented", adding that he had "never seen anything like this happening so quickly". The French engineering group's share price has outperformed the market ever since its overhang was resolved in February. Alcatel and Marconi had created a drag on Alstom's stock since its IPO in 1997.

Sixteen banks have been signed into the $600m debt facility for the $4bn project financing of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline project. The successful syndication closed oversubscribed by 55%. Lead arrangers are ABN Amro, Crédit Agricole Indosuez and the IFC.

The Republic of Romania rode a tidal wave of demand for scarce high yielding east European paper this week to launch a Eu600m seven year benchmark well inside initial price talk. Lead managers Credit Suisse First Boston and JP Morgan won as much envy as praise from rival bankers, who said the deal gave the market exactly what it needed. "This is a large, liquid transaction with huge upside potential and fantastic diversification out of Latin America," said Christopher Tuffey, head of global emerging markets syndicate at CSFB in London.