UK

Shares in Helios Towers, the African telecommunications infrastructure company backed by George Soros and Madeleine Albright, rose as much as 4.3% following their debut on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning, despite a jittery market that has seen numerous IPOs pulled or trading below their offer prices.

Covenant erosion and the lack of disclosure worried market participants at Afme’s Annual European High Yield Conference in London on Wednesday. While investors are ever better educated and organised, the hunt for yield is driving them to accept aggressive documentation.

RTW investments, the US-based life sciences and pharmaceutical investment company, is seeking to list a new vehicle fund on the specialist fund segment of the London Stock Exchange.

Bureau Veritas, the unrated certification agency headquartered in Paris, has entered the US private placement, according to market participants.

Infrastructure investment business 3i Infrastructure (3iN), which is controlled by private equity firm 3i Group, managed to buck Brexit volatility and place 81m new shares into the market, to fund the pay down of a revolving credit facility linked to acquisition financing.

The buyout bonds for Merlin Entertainments and Kantar, backed by Blackstone and Bain, will set new standards for European issuers. If the investors strike down the "net short" clauses — as they did in an earlier Inmarsat deal — the sponsors may give up on the controversial strategy to battle hedge funds with large CDS positions.

Birmingham Airport has sold 30 and 31 year US private placements, as airports and port operators in Australia and Europe carve out a healthy chunk of market volume.

Five years after its creation, the Euro PP Charter, an industry guidance document for the Euro private placement market, has been updated to reflect progress in, among other things, environmental, social and governance procedures.

The African Export Bank (Afexrimbank) has filed initial paperwork before a potential float on the London Stock Exchange.

Moody’s said on Wednesday that investors’ approval of Lloyds Bank’s request to convert the interest basis on a covered bond from Libor to Sonia was credit positive for the issuer and bodes well for the rest of covered bond and structured finance markets, which must transition to Sonia before 2022.

UK coach operator National Express has sold roughly $500m-equivalent US private placements, in dollars, euros and sterling, with substantial delayed draws.

Paddy Power’s prospective US private placement debut has been kicked into the long grass, according to sources familiar with the situation, as the Irish gambling company instead focuses on a merger with Canada’s PokerStars.