UK Sovereign

CVC and Blackstone’s block sale of £260m of Merlin Entertainments stock struggled to gather momentum on Wednesday evening, but support from long-only UK investors the following morning dragged the deal across the line just in time for start of trading.

Louis Dreyfus — Geberit — Heathrow — Arkema

The US investment grade corporate bond market barely blinked this week when the US Federal Reserve called time on quantitative easing. Companies hit the market ahead of what is expected to be a bumper November for new issuance.

The $500m five year, non-callable senior bond Jaguar Land Rover sold on Tuesday began trading up at 100.75, gathering investor interest in a market environment that “is only now becoming more stable”, said the company’s treasurer.

Affordable Housing Finance, which raises debt for lending to registered providers of affordable housing in the UK, using a UK government guarantee, has tapped its 2042 secured bonds for £183.5m — and priced arguably through its own curve.

CVC and Blackstone’s sale of Merlin stock struggled to gather momentum on Wednesday evening, but support from long-only UK investors the following morning dragged the deal across the line just in time for start of trading.

The Bank of England (BoE) will begin work next year figuring out how to provide Islamic banks with Shariah-compliant liquidity facilities. Even without knowing what rates or requirements the prospective facilities will involve, the UK’s Islamic lenders — long starved of Shariah-compliant liquid assets — say anything will be better than holding cash.

Jefferies has lost its head of sterling credit sales.

Standard Chartered has lost another senior banker from its loan syndications team in London, according to well placed sources.

Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa, the largest EU coking coal producer, has yet to announce the size and shape of its proposed bond issue, though it finished a seven day roadshow on Tuesday - leading some to wonder if the deal was struggling to gain traction.

A £1.35bn fundraising for phases II and III of the Battersea Power Station project was signed among seven banks on October 28. The loan was split into a £750m facility to fund phase II and a £600m portion for phase III that included a chunk of Islamic financing. It represents one of the biggest sterling financings by a Malay consortium.

Heathrow Airport Holdings, which owns and runs Heathrow, Southampton, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports, has begun the process of refinancing its core revolving credit and liquidity facilities, according to its most recent financial statement.