Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group

SMBC has beefed up its coverage of the technology sector with the addition of two senior bankers in San Francisco who previously worked together at HSBC.

India’s largest ever leveraged buyout loan, tied to Blackstone’s stake purchase in IT services company Mphasis, is in the market, after inviting a wide group of banks to participate in general syndication.

Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group has formed an alliance with Jefferies and is providing the US investment bank with capital to pursue its ambitions in leveraged finance.

State-owned Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (VietinBank) is in the market for a $790m loan, its largest offshore facility yet.

Private equity firm Blackstone is raising $1.1bn to support its purchase of a stake in Indian IT company Mphasis. The deal is set to be the largest leveraged buyout loan in the country — and comes with a group of 13 bookrunners at the top. Pan Yue reports.

Commodities company Trafigura’s Singapore arm is making its annual return to the Asian loan market, this time opting for a sustainability-linked facility.

ONGC Videsh, the overseas subsidiary of Indian state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp, has launched a $500m loan into general syndication. It is targeting a broad group of lenders for the fundraising, owing to lending caps imposed on banks.

Indian Oil Corp has mandated three banks for its $500m loan return, after inviting firms to bid for the transaction last month.

Indian software services provider Coforge, previously known as NIIT Technologies, is seeking a loan to fund a dividend recapitalisation, joining a growing list of companies raising debt to pay a special dividend to shareholders.

Indian company ONGC Videsh has mandated four banks for a $500m fundraising, which is likely to be syndicated next month.

The ESG capital markets were left reeling on Thursday after a group of banks provided a £1.1bn-equivalent sustainability-linked facility that does not have any key performance indicators included — on the agreement that the borrower will add them within 12 months. Mike Turner reports.

A spate of UK borrowers have signed loans that use Sonia as the benchmark rate from day one this week, with the consistently tricky transition given some cheer after companies said that the process is fairly simple.