Loans and High Yield

Gatwick Airport brought its debut subordinated bond to market this week, a high yield issue raised from its holding company that found investor demand for more than three times the deal size, and that was priced at the tight end of talk.

Leads tightened pricing and increased the size of an opportunistic maturity-pushing loan and bond refinancing for French supermarket Casino this week, with investors keen to buy the company’s turnaround story and look past the troubles of its holding company, Rallye, which needs a slug of cash to pay bondholders in 2023.

Asian sponsor-backed firms are following their Western peers in tapping the loan market for dividend recapitalisations, encouraged by a buoyant stock price and low debt levels. Rashmi Kumar reports.

The fact that a large US insurance company could offer the English Football League better lending terms than UK banks or other investors is revealing. UK lenders are shying away from deals, which has opened the doors to institutional investors. The speed with which a tailor-made EFL deal was done shows how quickly they can replace traditional creditors.

US institutional investor MetLife has offered a more attractive loan package to the English Football League — England's second, third and fourth professional football divisions — than the UK government and bank lenders.

Leads have tightened pricing and increased the size of Casino’s maturity-pushing loan and bond refi, with investors keen to buy the company’s turnaround story and looking past the troubles of holding company Rallye, which needs to find a big slug of cash to pay bondholders in 2023.

Mizuho has hired Robert Lepone as head of loan trading EMEA, a newly created job intended to expand the Japanese bank’s loan distribution capabilities.

Jiangsu Zhongnan Construction Group Co raised $250m from a new money and exchange offer on Monday.

Asian lenders have often balked at dividend recaps. They should reconsider.

BNP Paribas has leapfrogged JP Morgan to become the top bookrunner in EMEA loans this quarter, with the French bank almost doubling its market share. But this increase has yet to play out in the bank’s bond bookrunning activities in the region.

Hong Kong-listed Car Inc raised $250m from a bond last Friday, riding on the positive sentiment of an ongoing take-private deal and better access to funding.

Philippine company SPi Global, an outsourcing services provider, is understood to be seeking a $300m to $400m loan, some of which will go towards funding a dividend recapitalisation.