Switzerland

Reverse enquiries led to two large share sales over the last week, with one of the blocks executed as a pure club transaction without the need for an accelerated bookbuild at all.

Going into 2018, many in Europe’s equity capital markets anticipated a busy first quarter. So far those predictions have proven correct, with a rush of deals this week.

Europe’s equity linked new issue market is enjoying a busy start to the year, with four deals totalling €1.56bn priced in the past week. The latest was a Sfr300m seven year convertible bond (CB) issue by Swiss Prime Site, the property investment company.

JP Morgan launched on Thursday January 4 the first European equity-linked bond of the year: a $350m bond exchangeable into shares of Dufry, the Swiss duty free retailer. The deal is designed to hedge derivatives positions the bank already held on Dufry shares.

An announcement on Tuesday morning that Oxford University would be meeting UK investors ahead of an ultra-long-dated transaction caused a stir across the corporate bond market this week.

UK distribution company Bunzl and UK logistics property company Tritax Big Box REIT both met with investors in the UK in the first half of this week before launching debut bond deals on Thursday, while Anglian Water Osprey Financing launched a transaction straight after an investor breakfast.

Swiss food and drinks company Nestlé tapped a fourth currency market in three months on Tuesday when it printed a £500m 3.5 year bond ahead of a sterling redemption.

UBS was looking to sell short-dated senior bonds in the dollar market on Monday, as banks began the week by selling defensive trades. But the pipeline is stocked with riskier deals in the run-up to the end of the year.

Valora, the Swiss convenience retailer, has raised Sfr172m through an equity capital raising to refinance its acquisition of German bakery group BackWerk and to grow its production capabilities.

Banks active in capital markets outside the European Union are using their exemption from the bloc’s onerous market abuse rules as a selling point to attract issuers, with the Swiss francs, Canadian dollars, and yen markets in particular focus.

Gunvor, the oil trading group headquartered in Switzerland, agreed a $1.39bn revolving credit facility (RCF) on Thursday to refinance tranches of previous loans.

Borrowers and investors marched on in the European leveraged finance markets this week, pricing €1.5bn of high yield bonds while bankers have been able to tighten terms on new loan deals during syndication. Deals pulled earlier in the week in the US are already a fading memory.