Loans and High Yield

Ion Investment Group is preparing to combine its Dealogic and Mergermarket units under a single corporate entity, Ion Analytics, and refinance the group’s expensive private debt raised last year with a cheaper, broadly syndicated loan package across dollars and euros. A strong performance over the last year should encourage investors to look past the group’s previous struggles with access to the public markets.

This week in Keeping Tabs: how the European Central Bank could decarbonise its corporate bond book, how digital banks would suffer if the Bank of England goes negative, and what UK financial services policy could look like after Brexit.

A host of Chinese issuers found one of the last windows to sell bonds on Thursday ahead of the US presidential elections at the beginning of November and a public holiday in Hong Kong early next week.

Metals and mining company Vedanta Resources has returned a $1.75bn loan and redeemed a $1.4bn bond after its plan to delist its Indian subsidiary failed to attract enough support.

Chinese property developer Country Garden has closed a $1.5bn-equivalent dual currency loan, attracting seven participants during syndication.

Permira opted to rescue its debt purchasing portfolio company Lowell from the restructuring that many thought was imminent, with the largest slug of equity support any sponsor has injected in Europe since the coronavirus pandemic began. Covid-19 has crushed cashflows for some debt purchasers, but next year should be a bumper year for NPL buying — for those firms with cash to do so, writes Owen Sanderson.

The €2.6bn financing for Adevinta’s purchase of eBay Classifieds looks set to be a blowout success, with sharp tightening across all tranches underlining the bid for quality credits enduring limited pandemic impact. The deal’s double-B rating helps attract rating-sensitive investors who have seen their portfolios pummelled this year by Covid-related downgrades.

Leveraged finance bankers coping with a slump in deal flow in Asia this year are gearing up for a bumper start to 2021, as a return of liquidity and growing interest from institutional investors for loans set the stage for a market revival. Pan Yue reports.

ReNew Power, the Indian renewable energy giant, brought a $325m green bond to the market on Tuesday. It offered investors a rare opportunity to buy a high yielding deal from the country, despite using a fairly unusual structure for its transaction.

UBS's investment bank beat analyst consensus as capital markets revenue was up sharply year-on-year, while a sale of intellectual property rights resulted in a one-off gain, the bank showed in third quarter results on Tuesday.

Getlink, the company that operates the Channel Tunnel, is preparing a €700m high yield green bond to refinance its 2023 bonds and raise cash for capex, including finishing off a landmark electricity connection between the UK and France. The refi comes after it negotiated waivers on the covenants in its term loan to deal with the impact of the pandemic.

More Singaporean companies are making the transition to a new local currency benchmark rate in preparation for the end of Libor, with Sembcorp Industries becoming the latest firm to raise a loan linked to Sora.