Loans and High Yield

GMR Hyderabad International Airport swooped into the bond market on Tuesday for $300m, adding money to its coffers ahead of an expectation of a revival in passenger growth.

More Chinese real estate borrowers headed to the dollar bond market on Tuesday, as bankers tackle a supply rush in the lead up to the Chinese New Year holidays in mid-February.

Hong Kong-listed Sun Hung Kai Properties has returned to the loan market for a HK$5bn ($645m) club deal. It is testing lender appetite at a time of growing selectiveness around the sector.

Indonesian mining company Bukit Makmura Mandiri Utama (Buma) returned to the bond market on Tuesday to raise $400m after a three-year hiatus.

Chinese conglomerate Fosun International has cut pricing on a new $560m-equivalent multi-currency loan, as it counts on banks’ hunger to lend amid slow deal flow to push its transaction past the finish line.

BlackRock wants to move a long way towards catching up with leading investors in its response to climate change, its CEO Larry Fink indicated in his annual letter to chief executives on Tuesday. BlackRock stopped short of setting a net zero carbon emissions target for its $8.7tr of assets under management, or committing to swift decarbonisation. But it did publish a ‘net zero commitment’ saying it would “support the goal of net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner”.

Direct lenders and debt funds have always pitched themselves as being more suitable partners for businesses than banks, bondholders, or other institutional lenders. When the going gets tough, they can be quicker to waive covenants and offer new money than a less concentrated creditor group. But this also puts them in pole position to take the keys from a business should things go wrong — which we may see happen this year.

UK broadband company TalkTalk is marketing an add-on to its existing high yield notes, raising new term debt to pay down its revolver. The company is subject to a takeover bid from Toscafund and Penta Capital, which will leave the existing bonds in place, but grant them security, as well as layering in extra leverage with a PIK toggle from Ares.

Three Chinese property companies announced dollar bond transactions on Monday, continuing the run of issuance seen from the high yield market since the beginning of the year.

German car part maker Stabilus began marketing a Schuldschein on Monday, as many consider whether the automotive sector should be back on investors' buy lists.

Plastics packaging firm Klöckner Pentaplast has included an ESG margin ratchet in the loan leg of its refinancing, which was announced on Monday, a feature set to become increasingly common in European leveraged credit this year. Unlike previous deals with this structure, KP will take this structure to the dollar market, as well as euros.

Hellman & Friedman is looking to refinance the capital structure of portfolio company TeamSystem, as part of the sale of the firm from its seventh fund to its ninth, a transfer also recently completed by Verisure. Unlike Verisure, the fund switch isn’t accompanied by a monster dividend payment to the new fund, but the new deal will still jack up leverage levels.