Search results for

Cellnex Telecom, the Spanish wireless telecommunications company, has reopened the equity-linked market in Europe with a €200m tap of the €600m convertible bond it issued exactly one year ago.

Slovenia hit screens with the first sovereign bond of 2019 on Monday, undergoing some price discovery but closing a successful deal and paving the way for other countries to follow suit.

French telecoms operator Orange ensured the cobwebs were blown off the corporate bond market on Tuesday when it launched the first multi-tranche offering of 2019, which included the longest tenor of the year to date and the year’s first sterling corporate bonds in its four tranches.

The bond market is well ahead of schedule in its adoption of potential Libor replacements, with several issuers having printed notes linked to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (Sofr) in the dollar market, and to the Sterling Overnight Index Average (Sonia) in sterling. Borrowers are setting strong standards for other participants to take up, as well as adjusting structures to ensure the eventual market is optimal. That does not mean the job is finished, of course. GlobalCapital spoke to some of the pioneers in the Sonia and Sofr markets about their work so far — and the challenges ahead.

Westpac has issued the first dollar covered bond of the year, and its first in that currency in more than two years. The borrower took advantage of a quiet market to issue a sizeable $2bn five year deal that provided a considerable cost saving to senior unsecured — sending a strong signal to other issuers.

Credit default swaps (CDS) are a complicated product. But the past year has presented a few examples of market participants resorting to ‘creative’ tactics to optimise payouts. If the market fails to respond to concerns around the viability of CDS, the product may have to be rethought.

Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras began the year finalising yet another buy-back of existing bonds, though the response from bondholders fell below the $1.5bn maximum repurchase amount set by the borrower.

FMS Wertmanagement is planning to issue its first Sofr-linked issue in 2019, which will be sold to the money markets in the form of asset-backed commercial paper.

Aircraft leasing company Avolon has returned to the offshore syndications market for a $300m loan.

Guotai Junan International Holdings paid a premium over the curve of some of its Chinese brokerage peers for a $200m bond on Monday.

The Republic of the Philippines opened the bond market for Asian sovereign issuers in 2019 with a $1.5bn outing, making efforts to boost its engagement with Chinese investors and paying just a small double-digit premium for the deal.

Seazen Holdings, previously known as Future Land Holdings, and Powerlong Real Estate raised $500m between them on Monday for near-term refinancing, with positive market sentiment allowing them to price their bonds tightly.