Jefferies LLC

In the first instalment of our 2015 awards, we present the winners for Best Project Financing, Best Leveraged Financing, Best Investment Grade Loan and Best Loans House.

Dometic, the Swedish maker of refrigerators and cookers for camper vans, traded up 15.42% on its first day as a public company on Wednesday, a strong aftermarket performance that recalled other Scandinavian IPOs this year.

The leveraged finance market suffered an unpleasant shock this week, when $5.6bn of loans and bonds for the Carlyle Group’s acquisition of Veritas Software had to be pulled. Bankers were left blaming market sentiment, an aggressive structure — and each other, write Max Bower and Victor Jimenez.

The weakness of the US leveraged finance market was brought home to market participants with a jolt on Tuesday, when the Carlyle Group, which is buying Veritas Technologies, a US data storage company, abandoned its attempt to raise $3.3bn of debt for the deal.

Nomura has hired three managing directors within its emerging markets business — two from Barclays and one from Jefferies.

Veritas Technologies, the Californian data storage company, has increased its high yield bond issue to make up for a disappointing loan financing. But initial price talk has yet to emerge.

Shares in Softcat, the UK IT services and solutions provider, have risen 23% since the company's £153.4m IPO, as an initial 20% pop solidified into steady gains.

McCarthy & Stone, the UK’s leading builder of retirement homes for sale, completed its IPO on Friday November 6, in a £336m deal that gave it an initial market capitalisation of £967m.

Bank of Georgia completed the initial public offering of its healthcare subsidiary on Monday, as it successfully priced the deal, although at a price much below what it had hoped for.

The IPO of Softcat, the UK IT infrastructure and services provider, is “oversubscribed and in good shape”, according to a banker on the deal. The London flotation was widely tipped to value the firm at £500m.

McCarthy & Stone, the UK’s leading builder of retirement homes for sale, closed the book for its London IPO at 1pm on Thursday, saying orders below 180p a share were expected to miss.

Veritas, the Californian data management company, has become the first US borrower to roadshow for a euro high yield bond in the second half of this year — and bankers say it will soon have company.