Loans and High Yield

Grünenthal, the German pharmaceutical firm which specialises in painkillers, is looking to refinance its debt with an inaugural high yield bond, just two months after buyers reportedly shunned the company over ESG concerns around opioid manufacturing.

German TV shopping network HSE is preparing a new high yield bond to refinance its existing unitranche debt and pay owner Providence Private Equity a dividend.

European loan bankers were wildly optimistic for their hopes for deal flow in the first quarter, after a new survey from the European Central Bank shows that loan demand was 40% less than expected.

Hong Kong-listed ESR Cayman, a logistics real estate company, has raised a $400m dual-tranche borrowing.

Putian State-Owned Assets Investment Co (PTSI) sold its first dollar bond this week, raising $180m.

Ping An International Financial Leasing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China’s Ping An Group, is casting a wide net for its $500m loan comeback, in a bid to diversify its financing sources — and its banking relationships.

Last week’s heavy levfin supply hasn’t produced a pause for digestion, with five new high yield bonds on Monday joining two announced on Friday for execution this week, despite some recent supply trading down in secondary.

Cambodia’s Prasac Microfinance Institution has returned to the loan market for $200m, narrowing pricing by 35bp compared to its last transaction in 2020.

Duty-free operator Dufry joined the throng of issuers in the high yield primary markets this week with its first straight offering since the coronavirus pandemic hit. It increased the offering size from €850m to €1bn, as investors pinned their hopes on the vaccine-inspired recovery in the travel industry.

Pfleiderer and its owner, Strategic Value Partners, have minor changes during syndication to the deal docs in its dual-tranche sustainability-linked high yield bond, limiting the group’s flexibility to pay out sale proceeds from its Polish division as a dividend. But the company has succeeded in pushing pricing tight, with the fixed rate bonds set to land at 4.75% area and the floater at 475bp.

Cimpress has launched a cross-border term loan ‘B’, aiming to raise more first lien debt at tight levels to allow it to clean up its costly 12% second lien facility raised from Apollo last April.

GlobalCapital is conducting its annual poll to determine its Bond Awards 2021. The voting deadline has been extended until April 22, so we invite readers who have not voted yet to do so in the coming week.