UK

The European IPO market has run into rough terrain, with three flotations abandoned this week and a fourth in trouble. Investors have been shaken by the poor trading of Nets, the Nordic payments group, fears of tighter monetary policy and volatility in sterling, write Aidan Gregory and Jon Hay.

The IPO of TI Fluid Systems, the UK maker of car brake and fuel lines, was scrapped on Thursday — the third flotation to be cancelled this week. That of Biffa, the UK waste management group, is hanging in the balance.

Despite a tough IPO market in which deals are falling by the wayside, ConvaTec, the UK medical supplies manufacturer, opened the books for its London IPO on Thursday morning with a price range that values it at £4.4bn to £5bn.

The UK Debt Management Office will transfer its responsibility to provide reference prices on the £1.4tr Gilts market to FTSE Russell and Tradeweb, likely by the spring of next year.

Cabot Credit Management, the debt purchasing and recovery business, has amended its senior secured revolving credit facility and lowered the margin but kept the same group of lenders.

Two European IPOs have failed this week, as investor sentiment has been shaken by the poor trading of Nets and Innogy. The reticence has not stopped a UK publisher from enjoying encouraging ex-rights trading.

An acquisition financing to back Indian company Intas Pharmaceuticals’ purchase of a portfolio of assets in the UK and Ireland is due to hit syndication soon. The loan is expected to be one of the first big ticket trades to be booked partly out of India’s international financial services centre, Gift City.

Affordable Housing Finance showed the appetite of sterling corporate bond investors for new issues despite Brexit induced volatility, as it issued a £124.5m tap on Tuesday.

Rights of Informa, the UK business and academic publishing and events company, began trading separately from its shares this week. Both have traded down, but the ratio between the prices remains satisfactory.

PureGym, the UK’s largest gym operator, has pulled the plug on its £219m London IPO after finding weak demand, in another blow to the autumn equity capital markets pipeline.

Investment grade corporate issuers hit the euro bond markets in force on Tuesday with five primary transactions in play, but defensive deal sizes characterised the frantic flow.

UK luxury clothing retailer Ted Baker has increased the size of its revolving credit facility from £85m to £110m.