Health and Biotech

  • Zhaoke eyes $270m from Hong Kong IPO

    Zhaoke eyes $270m from Hong Kong IPO

    Chinese company Zhaoke Ophthalmology has kicked off a Hong Kong IPO worth up to HK$2.1bn ($270m), becoming the latest biotechnology company to sell shares on the bourse.

    16 Apr 2021

  • Eyes on IMF as Suriname clinches debt delay

    More than 90% of Suriname’s bondholders this week participated in a consent solicitation that extends the sovereign’s debt standstill until the end of July. But the government has only until April 30 to sign a deal with the IMF, or the standstill will be cancelled.

    15 Apr 2021
  • IFFIm to head to scorching dollar market

    IFFIm to head to scorching dollar market

    The International Facility for Immunisation (IFFIm) will bring a new five year benchmark vaccine bond on Wednesday, following a slew of strong trades on Tuesday.

    13 Apr 2021
  • Dufry joins primary rush with comeback bond

    Dufry joins primary rush with comeback bond

    Duty-free operator Dufry has joined the throng of issuers in the high yield primary markets with its first straight offering since the coronavirus pandemic hit. The new bond comes after extensive efforts to shore up the company’s capital, including the early conversion of a crisis era convert and talks with lenders for more covenant waivers.

    13 Apr 2021
  • Buyers eye UK retail assets as high street reopens

    Buyers eye UK retail assets as high street reopens

    With the UK opening up high street retail on Monday, investors are said to be eyeing retail real estate for opportunities. But the market, hit hard by the pandemic, will be slow to recover – with Newcastle’s Metrocentre becoming a prominent example of the future for shopping centres after the pandemic.

    12 Apr 2021
  • PolyPeptide Group targets €1.5bn valuation

    PolyPeptide Group targets €1.5bn valuation

    Swiss pharmaceutical ingredients manufacturing company PolyPeptide Group has filed for an IPO on the SIX Swiss Exchange, which is expected to value the company at around €1.5bn equivalent to €1.7bn equivalent, according to a source close to the deal.

    12 Apr 2021
  • Generali warns of EU recovery fund delays

    Generali warns of EU recovery fund delays

    Hopes for a rapid European economic recovery are pinned in large part on the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, but Italian insurer Generali is concerned that the plan is already behind schedule.

    12 Apr 2021
  • Keymed gears up for Hong Kong IPO

    Keymed gears up for Hong Kong IPO

    Keymed Biosciences has started laying the groundwork for a planned Hong Kong IPO by filing its initial listing documents with the city’s exchange.

    12 Apr 2021
  • Suriname creditors back latest debt deferral

    Suriname creditors back latest debt deferral

    A group of institutional investors owning international bonds issued by Suriname have agreed to grant the South American sovereign a third debt payment standstill after the issuer modified the terms of a consent solicitation.

    08 Apr 2021
  • SDRs: better late than never

    SDRs: better late than never

    The announcement this week that the IMF is on its way to issuing a further $650bn of special drawing rights, providing central banks with extra foreign currency liquidity, should not be criticised for being too little, too late. It marks a much needed return to multilateralism, something that the developing world will benefit from.

    08 Apr 2021
  • Merck spin-off Organon launches $4.5bn bond financing

    Merck spin-off Organon launches $4.5bn bond financing

    Organon, the spin-off from US pharma company Merck, has launched a bond leg of its financing, which will establish the unit as a separate firm with its own capital structure, while funding a $9bn dividend to its former parent. The firm was initially offering $4.5bn-equivalent across secured and unsecured bonds, with a bias to the deeper dollar market, but scaled this up during syndication to allow it to strip out bank debt.

    08 Apr 2021
  • Travel crisis kicks off consolidations in aviation

    Travel crisis kicks off consolidations in aviation

    Investors are expecting the wave of consolidations in the aviation sector to continue beyond the GECAS-AerCap merger as smaller lessors look for ways to survive and bigger players seek for investment opportunities. The most recent example is Carlyle Aviation’s acquisition of Fly Leasing, another deal that highlights the monumental changes occurring within the aircraft sector in the midst of Covid-19.

    01 Apr 2021
  • France returns to lockdown, but OAT buyers shrug

    France returns to lockdown, but OAT buyers shrug

    French president Emmanuel Macron announced on Wednesday that stringent lockdown measures imposed in some areas will be extended nationally for a month. Though the measures will cost France €11bn, it is unlikely to provoke a serious response in France’s bond market.

    01 Apr 2021
  • EBA warns of ‘higher risks’ in loans still under moratoria

    EBA warns of ‘higher risks’ in loans still under moratoria

    Loans still under moratoria may be at a particularly high risk of impairment, according to fresh data from the European Banking Authority this week. The figures also revealed signs of a more general deterioration in asset quality within the EU.

    01 Apr 2021
  • Pandemic boosted CLO resistance to distressed fund predation

    Pandemic boosted CLO resistance to distressed fund predation

    The Covid crisis has made the CLO market stronger and more attractive to investors, but it has also taught the CLO community to defend itself from distressed debt funds, agreed panellists at the IMN and FIIN conference in the session focused on the CLO market recovery.

    31 Mar 2021
  • Alternative credit is here for the yield

    Alternative credit is here for the yield

    Institutional private credit is emerging as a competitive substitute for bank lending in Europe, but companies need to remember that alternative lenders define what they are looking for more narrowly than banks.

    31 Mar 2021

  • NPL digitization: online marketplaces to shift bad eurozone debt

    The European Central Bank has given itself the mission of creating a liquid non-performing loan (NPL) marketplace. Only this time, it’s online. Real estate managers like Prelios are attempting to remove barriers to NPL sales, but Europe’s multiple jurisdictions present legal hurdles.

    31 Mar 2021
  • Updated: Pakistan rides return of IMF programme to sell bonds

    Updated: Pakistan rides return of IMF programme to sell bonds

    The Islamic Republic of Pakistan marketed its first dollar bond in more than three years this week, following the return of the country’s IMF programme. The triple tranche transaction raised the south Asian country $2.5bn — and proved its resilience in the face of the pandemic. Morgan Davis reports.

    31 Mar 2021
  • Siemens Healthineers raises €2.3bn for M&A financing

    Siemens Healthineers raises €2.3bn for M&A financing

    Siemens Healthineers, the German healthcare tech company, has completed the second leg of equity financing to fund its acquisition of US cancer care solutions firm Varian. The involvement of a large anchor investor was revealed at the top of the book, which was quickly filled with long-only investors.

    25 Mar 2021
  • Creditors sue Province of Buenos Aires but market bets on resolution

    Creditors sue Province of Buenos Aires but market bets on resolution

    Investors holding over a quarter of the Province of Buenos Aires’ international bonds said they would “vigorously pursue” the legal proceedings that they began on Tuesday against Argentina’s largest province, which has been in default since April 2020. But bonds rallied as some saw the move as a sign that a resolution was nearing.

    24 Mar 2021
  • Merck spin-off launches first slug of $9.5bn debt-raising

    Merck spin-off launches first slug of $9.5bn debt-raising

    Organon, a spin-off of US pharmaceuticals company Merck, has launched the first $3bn of a $9.5bn capital raising that will give the soon-to-be independent group its own debt capital structure and fund a one-off special dividend to its parent.

    23 Mar 2021
  • Under-pressure Maldives readies dollar bond

    Under-pressure Maldives readies dollar bond

    The Republic of the Maldives, which took a big hit to its tourism-reliant economy last year due to the pandemic, announced a tender and new money offer on Monday, returning to the dollar bond market after a three year hiatus.

    22 Mar 2021
  • Collateral is king as Covid-hit companies split CLO investors

    Collateral is king as Covid-hit companies split CLO investors

    CLO debt investors are demanding cleaner CLO portfolios with underlying collateral less vulnerable to the impact of Covid and with high recovery prospects. With US CLO supply volumes at record levels, investors have the opportunity to pick and choose their deals, pushing managers into a fight over pricing and portfolios.

    18 Mar 2021

  • IAG finds €5bn book for pandemic-era bond return

    IAG issued a dual tranche euro bond this week — its first since the pandemic struck — following an extensive round of actions to shore up its balance sheet in the face of plunging airline passenger traffic. Investors looking for a recovery story piled into the new issue, which found more than €5bn of demand.

    18 Mar 2021
  • Moody’s inflicts another downgrade on Panama

    Moody’s inflicts another downgrade on Panama

    Moody’s became the third rating agency in four months to downgrade Panama’s sovereign rating, cutting the borrower from Baa1 to Baa2 on Wednesday afternoon on the back of an “unusually large” erosion of the country’s fiscal strength during the coronavirus pandemic.

    18 Mar 2021
  • IAG makes pandemic-era bond return

    IAG makes pandemic-era bond return

    IAG has launched a dual tranche euro bond — its first since the pandemic struck — following an extensive round of actions to shore up its balance sheet in the face of plunging airline passenger traffic.

    16 Mar 2021
  • IMF backs another debt restructuring in Belize

    IMF backs another debt restructuring in Belize

    The International Monetary Fund said in the concluding statement of last week’s Article IV mission to Belize that the government needs to restructure its debts to restore public debt sustainability, leaving bondholders bracing for a fifth credit event since 2007.

    16 Mar 2021
  • Cellink closes Skr3bn capital raising

    Cellink closes Skr3bn capital raising

    Cellink, the Swedish developer of 3D printing equipment for living cells, rose in trading on Friday morning after the company completed a Skr3bn ($350m) sale of new shares and convertible bonds to finance its acquisition of MatTek Corporation in the United States.

    12 Mar 2021
  • UK DMO leans on crisis know-how to meet huge remit

    UK DMO leans on crisis know-how to meet huge remit

    One big crisis should be enough for anyone's career. But Sir Robert Stheeman, chief executive of the UK's Debt Management Office, has had to face two monumental financial catastrophes in the last 13 years — first the 2008 UK banking crisis and then last year's pandemic.

    12 Mar 2021
  • Healthcare ECM still intact despite Nasdaq correction

    Healthcare ECM still intact despite Nasdaq correction

    Swedish pharmaceutical company Oncopeptides has placed Skr1.1bn ($132m) of new shares to finance the commercialisation of its lead product candidate in the United States, and the development of other treatments.

    10 Mar 2021
  • Bringing fundamentals back into focus is no bad thing

    Bringing fundamentals back into focus is no bad thing

    The rise in US Treasury yields in reaction to the government's $1.9tr stimulus package has prompted a shift in equity markets away from highly valued tech stocks that may do less well if interest rates rise as a result of higher inflation. But if the switch means investor portfolios reflect the wider economy, that is a positive development.

    09 Mar 2021
  • Spain's funding chief: 'Covid was like the proverbial alien invasion'

    Spain's funding chief: 'Covid was like the proverbial alien invasion'

    Pablo de Ramón-Laca is director general of the treasury and financial policy at Spain's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation. That places him in charge of the world's ninth largest sovereign debt stock, according to S&P data, for a country pummelled by the Covid-19 pandemic. Spain has the second highest number of cases in the EU and the seventh highest in the world. But even that is not the full story of the pandemic's impact.

    04 Mar 2021