UK

The board of BCA Marketplace, a UK secondhand car dealer, announced on Wednesday that it would recommend a £1.9bn offer from TDR Capital to take the company private. The deal marks a coup for Jefferies, which is lead financial adviser to BCA, a role it won following the hire of a UK M&A team from HSBC last year led by Philip Noblet.

The City of London Corporation, via its endowment fund The City’s Cash, has launched first US private placements (PP), roadshowing the prospective notes this week and next. The funds will be partly used to finance the consolidation of the Billingsgate, Smithfield and Spitalfields wholesale food markets at a new site in Dagenham, Essex.

Voltalia, the French renewable power producer, launched a €376m rights issue on Monday to finance an increase in capacity, and won a new investor — the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. This is believed to be the first time the EBRD has bought a public equity in western Europe.

TCS Group Holding, the Russian financial services company owned by founder Oleg Tinkoff, has completed a $300m primary capital raise by selling Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) on the London Stock Exchange, gathering a strong following from investors for the deal.

The £540m IPO of Airtel Africa, the African division of India’s Bharti Airtel, has been priced at 80p, the bottom of the initial range, following a $100m anchor order from an existing investor, according to a source close to the transaction.

Axa SFH issued its debut covered bond on Thursday, attracting a comfortably oversubscribed order book for the positive yielding eight year, which was priced at close to fair value. At the same time, Nationwide Building Society took advantage of the Swiss National Bank’s more generous repo arrangements to issue a three-part covered bond denominated in Swiss francs.

ReAssure, one of the largest life insurance companies in the UK, has begun bookbuilding for one of the biggest IPOs on the London Stock Exchange this year, with a price range that pitches the company at a significant discount to its peers, according to a banker involved in the IPO.

The UK is preparing to issue its second sukuk, following its debut in 2014.

Standard Chartered raised S$750m ($554m) from a Basel III-compliant additional tier one deal on Tuesday, boosting its capital ratio after a consolidation of its operations in Singapore this year. The bank’s strong Asia links helped it achieve better funding arbitrage compared to some of its European peers.

Travelodge is planning to dip into the sterling market to refinance all its bonds, issuing up to £440m in senior secured floating rate notes. It would take advantage of a window for UK issuance before the likely resumption of political worries in the autumn as the Brexit deadline approaches.

London’s most recent IPO issuers can exhale with relief after pricing their deals just before an increasingly turbulent Conservative leadership contest and the increasing likelihood of a disorderly Brexit spooked investors.

The UK Debt Management Office (UK DMO) will reopen its 2041 index-linked Gilt through syndication in the week commencing July 8, subject to market and demand conditions.