
Hybrid
Total hits hybrids as subordinated debt spreads swing out
Total, the French oil and gas company, placed a chunky €3bn hybrid trade on Monday, as the spread between corporate senior and subordinated debt widens after months of tightening.
Total, the French oil and gas company, placed a chunky €3bn hybrid trade on Monday, as the spread between corporate senior and subordinated debt widens after months of tightening.
SMBC Nikko wants to grow its capital markets and advisory business in EMEA, which is smaller than its parent’s heft in the loan market. It has hired Anthony Bryson, a former NatWest Markets and BNP Paribas banker, to lead the push.
Many EU companies could do with capital beyond bog standard debt, according to the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (Afme). The trade body, in a report it produced alongside PwC, suggests encouraging the use of equity-adjacent products to fill balance sheet gaps from the coronavirus crisis.
Sagax, the Swedish commercial property company, and UK social housing firm Great Places have mandated for sub-benchmark sized deals, in what is likely to be a curtailed week for issuance in the corporate bond with a European Central Bank meeting on Thursday.
German software company TeamViewer launched an inaugural Schuldschein deal on Monday, with margins linked to its ESG performance. Five new borrowers have entered the Schuldschein market so far this year, almost half as many as appeared throughout the whole of 2020.
Aedifica, the Belgian-based healthcare property investment company, has launched a US private placement, according to market sources.
After a modest start to 2021, European leveraged finance started to fire on all cylinders this week, with three new bonds and a loan announced, alongside Ineos Quattro’s €4.6bn debt package which began marketing efforts last week.
One of the boldest initiatives to green the financial system is getting under way this year, as the members of the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance begin a drive to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of entities they invest in by between 16% and 29% in the next five years.
One of the world’s largest commodity traders, Trafigura, has launched a Schuldschein which, due to its credit profile and intended yield, is a clear outlier. While some see the borrower as too risky for this market, others see it as a sign of the Schuldschein's growing ambition.
Market participants believe 2021 could be the year when social bonds become established as a more thriving and coherent market, after the breakthrough in volume during 2020, when issuance was swelled by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hamburg Airport has pulled a Schuldschein transaction with an initial target of €100m, according to several market sources, due to a lack of interest from investors.
Frequent Panda bond issuer China Everbright Water priced a three year deal on Thursday, meeting its maximum size target of Rmb1bn ($155m).
German automaker Volkswagen sold a Rmb500m ($77m) offshore renminbi (CNH) bond on Thursday, just one-and-a-half months after its last outing in the currency.
The frenetic pace of dollar bond issuance from Greater China continued on Thursday as three property companies and two government linked names courted investors.
The dollar corporate bond market has a more subdued feel this week, after its stellar start to the year, as US issuers are moving into earnings blackouts. But even as politics took centre stage as Congress moved to impeach President Donald Trump for the second time, ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, corporate borrowers quietly churned out deals.
Social bonds have long been the poor cousin of green bonds. A smaller, less well organised market.
Natixis promotes DCM bankers — Powell quits IFAD job — NatWest Markets makes Peberdy, Donaldson and Manwaring's positions permanent
Europe’s high grade corporate issuers have been heaping pressure on syndicate desks to print new debt at or inside fair value, but investors are fighting back and some deals have been punished as a result, write Mike Turner and Jon Hay.
TIM, formerly Telecom Italia, got almost €4bn of demand for its debut sustainability bond on Monday, a €1bn eight year. The company put its sustainable financing framework in place last year, an umbrella document allowing it to raise green, social or sustainable finance in bond or loan format.
After a near two year absence, Deutsche Bahn pulled into the Swiss franc market to issue 15 year debt with no new issue premium this week, landing inside its own euro curve.
Bankers are betting on a strong year for the UK — Europe’s biggest fee pool — but the overlapping concerns of Brexit, Covid-19 and regulation make for an uncertain outlook, writes David Rothnie.
Fundamentals are becoming more important again in Europe’s corporate bond primary market, but the power of the European Central Bank technical trade in the secondary market is quickly washing away new issue concessions.
NorteGas, the Spanish gas distribution company, won strong demand from investors on Thursday, despite syndicate bankers worrying that the market was softening.
Banks launched the bond leg of a combined €5bn refinancing for alarm company Verisure, which will raise cash for a €1.6bn dividend to shareholder Hellman & Friedman. This payment follows the transfer of the company between two H&F funds at a €14bn valuation.
Austrian paper and packaging firm Mayr-Melnhof Karton, called MM Karton for short, has launched a Schuldscheine, with an initial target of €300m.
Some €700m of CDS contracts referencing Europcar’s debt have been rendered worthless thanks to a technical squeeze in the CDS auction on Wednesday, in a blow for investors who thought they’d hedged their exposure to the troubled car rental firm. The controversial result threatens to reignite debates about whether the CDS market is fit for purpose, ahead of an expected wave of restructurings in the year to come.
Passive investors are expected to become a bigger force in environmental, social and governance debt investing this year, as index providers and asset managers expand the range of products that apply ESG criteria to bonds.
Indonesia's Tower Bersama Infrastructure used its recent rating upgrade to entice investors to its $300m bond on Wednesday. Price discovery was not easy but the telecommunication tower provider’s improving business profile appealed to the market.
Singapore Airlines made its debut in the dollar bond market on Wednesday, raising funds for new aircraft purchase as the travel industry prepares for a rebound in the near future.
SK Hynix was overwhelmed with investor demand for its triple-tranche dollar deal on Wednesday. It raised $2.5bn, but non-stop demand drove the bonds nearly 20bp tighter in the secondary market on Thursday.
Motability Operations, the UK non-profit company that leases cars and other vehicles to disabled people, won strong demand for its inaugural social bond on Wednesday, lending weight to the argument that the product will become a more prominent part of the capital markets this year.
The high grade corporate bond market was again packed with deals on Wednesday, with syndicate bankers expecting no let-up in activity and the week to end on a bang.
The prickly start to the year continued in Europe’s corporate bond market on Wednesday, as hybrid issues for Spanish toll road firm Abertis Infraestructuras and German oil and gas firm Wintershall Dea received opposite reactions from investors.
Together Money launched a £450m secured bond on Wednesday, the first sterling issue in the high yield market this year. The specialist mortgage lender was refinancing a bond due in 2024 and paying down some of the drawings under its Charles Street conduit securitization.
Yuexiu Property Co grabbed $750m from a dual-tranche trade on Tuesday that was heavily supported by its syndicate team.
State-owned electricity generator China Huaneng Group Co priced a dual-tranche $1bn bond on Tuesday, overcoming complications emerging from rising US Treasury rates and geopolitical concerns.
Intermediate Capital Group, the UK alternative asset manager, has hired Philippe Arbour from Palamon Capital Partner to help further develop its Senior Debt Partners strategy.
Anyone who thought the culmination of a trade deal between the EU and UK would provide a shining ray of clarity for financial services as to the level of market access between the two has been proved wrong. Little progress on regulatory equivalence decisions has been made, and while this points the way towards divergence, it is still unclear how exactly the UK would go about this.
Big firms like HSBC, BlackRock and JP Morgan are always being criticised for environmental, social and governance failings. The remedy lies in their hands.
Europe’s high grade corporate bond market is showing no signs of slowing down, with new issues again breezing through fair value.
Specialist private lender Kartesia has appointed a full time head of corporate social responsibility and environmental, social and governance issues.
The Association of Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples has written an open letter to BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink, who is expected to publish his annual letter to stakeholders this week. Apib wants BlackRock to end what it calls its “complicity” in the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, and to consult indigenous people as it finalises its new policy on biodiversity and deforestation.
Autostrade per l’Italia, the Italian motorway group, is marketing a nine year unsecured bond through Morgan Stanley, capitalising on the strong demand demonstrated by TIM’s eight year issue on Monday, which came through fair value on a €3.9bn book.
Beijing Capital Group Co, which marketed a two-tranche deal on Monday, decided to ditch the planned perpetual note and instead price a larger senior tranche for cost reasons.
Yongcheng Coal and Electricity Group’s debt woes have continued into the New Year. The company has warned about a missed payment on yet another domestic bond, and more institutions involved in its bond issuance have been criticised by a Chinese regulator.
Practitioners believe 2021 could be the year when sustainable finance finally breaks out of the narrow confines it has inhabited so far and spreads more widely across the economy.
Aroundtown, the Luxembourg-listed property company, opened 2021’s corporate hybrid capital issuance on Monday. More subordinated deals are already being lined up.
SMBC Nikko wants to grow its capital markets and advisory business in EMEA, which is smaller than its parent’s heft in the loan market. It has hired Anthony Bryson, a former NatWest Markets and BNP Paribas banker, to lead the push.
Many EU companies could do with capital beyond bog standard debt, according to the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (Afme). The trade body, in a report it produced alongside PwC, suggests encouraging the use of equity-adjacent products to fill balance sheet gaps from the coronavirus crisis.
Many EU companies could do with capital beyond bog standard debt, according to the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (Afme). The trade body, in a report it produced alongside PwC, suggests encouraging the use of equity-adjacent products to fill balance sheet gaps from the coronavirus crisis.
Many EU companies could do with capital beyond bog standard debt, according to the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (Afme). The trade body, in a report it produced alongside PwC, suggests encouraging the use of equity-adjacent products to fill balance sheet gaps from the coronavirus crisis.
Lidl, the Germany-headquartered budget supermarket chain, has entered the syndicated loan market to raise cash from Asian lenders for a second time, according to market sources.
Total, the French oil and gas company, placed a chunky €3bn hybrid trade on Monday, as the spread between corporate senior and subordinated debt widens after months of tightening.