UK

Alteri Investors, backed by Apollo Global Management, is launching a second investment vehicle focused on the European retail sector, as it sees opportunities to invest in that troubled industry.

US toymaker Hasbro is to take up on $3.6bn new debt to buy media company Entertainment One, acquiring porcine superstar Peppa Pig, among other brands, if rival bidders don’t scupper the deal. Hasbro may choose to pay a make-whole price to Entertainment One’s bondholders, who bought the company's issue less than three months ago, a research company predicts.

The UK Debt Management Office has announced that it is planning to reopen its 2054 Gilt through syndication in the week beginning September 9.

Asset manager Pemberton has raised €3.2bn for a direct lending fund focusing on Europe’s mid-market. This is a few months after it raised €1bn for another European direct lending platform, Strategic Credit Opportunities Strategy (SCOS), which has higher expectations on returns.

Agents active in private debt markets in the UK are growing increasingly frustrated by a crop of advisory firms muscling in on their market share, often arranging deals without the need an investment bank. Some bankers allege that advisory firms don’t have the capacity to price deals effectively, and also that some do not have appropriate regulatory cover from the US regulators to pitch investors there legally.

The UK was over two and half times covered for a tender of long end Gilt on Thursday.

One Housing, a UK housing association focused on London and southeast England, has sold £150m of secured and unsecured US private placement notes to institutional investors.

The return of heightened market volatility this summer is leading to investors looking at defensive assets as fund managers consider how to ride out a possible turn in the economic cycle.

RSA Insurance Group won strong demand for a new £350m senior unsecured offering this week, as bankers spoke of appealing conditions in the sterling market.

Virgin Money plc has mandated leads for a European roadshow and hopes to issue its first euro denominated covered bond. The transaction is set to emerge at a challenging time, amid rising concerns that the UK will chaotically leave the European Union without reaching an exit agreement at the end of October.

Highgate School in north London has closed a £60m US private placement, joining a clutch of private schools using the instrument for long term financing.

The UK Debt Management Office said on Tuesday that it planned to hold a tender offer for up to £500m of its 4.25% 2046 Gilt. Meanwhile, Gilt-edged market makers (GEMMs) and investors have expressed their preferred timing, structure and maturity choice for the sovereign’s next syndication.