Switzerland

Swiss pharmaceutical and biotech ingredients supplier Lonza has secured $5.5bn in funds from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and UBS for the acquisition of US dosage form maker Capsugel, in a financing package that includes a variety of debt and equity products.

Bats Europe is to add several benchmark indices spanning French, German, Italian and Swiss markets and expects these to support derivatives products in the future.

Pfandbriefbank Schweizerischer Hypothekarinstitute tapped two Swiss covered bonds on Tuesday, in what was likely the final trades of the year. The shorter 10 year Pfandbrief tenor offered a 0.29% yield, an early Christmas present to investors forced far along the curve throughout the year.

Glencore launched a cash tender offer on Thursday, hoping to buy back $1bn of dollar bonds, after raising $4.7bn from asset sales in the past few weeks.

When a company announces that it is increasing the amount paid out to shareholders, it is not typically greeted with enthusiasm by credit investors. But Glencore is no ordinary company in the credit default swap world, and its announcement on Thursday wasn’t a standard change in financial policy.

Commodity trader Gunvor increased its European revolving credit facility by around 50% to meet oversubscribed commitments, having also grown its $725m working capital loan after strong demand.

Shares in Meyer Burger Technology, the Swiss solar panel maker, plunged 13% on Tuesday after it announced a recapitalisation programme involving a rights issue, an adjustment of the terms of the Sfr100m convertible bond it issued in September 2014, and the extension of a loan secured on one of its properties.

Tidjane Thiam seems to have lost his hero status with investors. Credit Suisse’s share price leapt 7.7% on the day in March 2015 when he was named CEO, but most of the times Thiam has presented the bank’s results since taking the helm 16 months ago, the market has shuddered. On Thursday, its shares fell 6% by the afternoon, even though the bank beat expectations and pleased analysts.

UBS announced that it has received the consent of investors to change the maturity terms of its covered bonds from hard to soft bullet.

Amid rough going for new IPOs this week, one of this year’s star IPO performers, Maisons du Monde, was back in the market on Wednesday night as the global coordinators waived the lock-up to let the leading shareholders make their first block trade in the stock. Thursday brought a substantial trade in Ferrexpo, which owns iron mines in Ukraine, which got done, though at a slightly reduced size.

A banker at one of Ecom Agroindustrial's new lenders, Raiffeisen Bank International, said that the bank was following a strategy to build new relationships with soft commodity firms in joining the Ecom deal.

The Canton of Geneva has offered a 40 year bond to the Swiss market, the longest public sector, non-government bond ever in the Swiss market.