8 February 2012
Apax Partners’ Orange Switzerland is offering its Sfr225m term loan ‘B’ with a tighter than expected original issue discount of 99, as the leveraged loan market builds on the strong progress made in the syndications of the Schaeffler and CPA Global deals. read more »
08 February 2012
Turkey’s Akbank has bowed to pressure from its lending group and increased the all-in margin of its annual refinancing to 145bp from 100bp. But the deal is still priced a bit too aggressively, said bankers.
UAE-based international airline Emirates plans to raise AED1.9bn ($518.3m) from an Islamic financing facility to help purchase three aircraft.
Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Corporation (IPIC) is looking to the international market to refinance a $1.5bn loan, said bankers. But the pricing IPIC has proposed has been slammed as “ridiculous” by one senior banker.
07 February 2012
Spanish telecom Telefónica has launched a self-arranged transaction refinancing part of the credit facilities used to back its acquisition of O2 in 2006.
Fears are growing that miserly loan volumes will continue for the next six months, as syndicated loan volumes across Central Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEEMEA) hit their lowest levels since 1999.
The syndicated loan community is adamant that a shortage of, or unwillingness to provide, debt is not to blame for lacklustre activity in leveraged buy-out land, according to a EuroWeek poll.
Fifteen banks participated in a five year dual tranche facility for Swedish toolmaker Sandvik, with the triple-B rated borrower choosing not to increase the size of the deal despite oversubscription.
06 February 2012
Russian banks will lend about 20% more in 2012 than last year, said Fitch Ratings on Monday, after their lending grew 30% in 2011. Meanwhile, international lenders continue to find Russian deals sparse.
BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel, HSBC, Natixis and Société Générale have underwritten €285m of senior loans to back the takeover of Icelandic seafood group Alfesca by Lur Berri and LBO France.
Petrochemicals company Ineos will use all the proceeds from last week’s $1.65bn (€1.26bn) high yield bond issue to repay its €1bn term loan ‘B’ and a portion of its term loan ‘C’.
03 February 2012
Despite widespread predictions of a steady increase in margins this year, the investment grade loan market is stubbornly resisting calls to price deals higher.
European banks are digging in to push up the pricing on Russian loans by 50bp-100bp, said market participants this week. But some warned that this will lead to a delay in deals being signed.
Bank meetings will be held next week to market the leveraged loans backing Apax’s buy-out of Orange Switzerland and Cinven’s takeover of CPA Global. But market participants said bookrunners were looking for a quick turnaround, having already sounded out numerous lenders.
French building materials firm Lafarge is amending its €1.65bn revolving credit facility, extending the maturity by two years to 2015 and increasing the out-of-the-box margin to 200bp.
Africa has been keeping emerging market loans desks busy as deal flow remains lethargic in the Middle East and eastern Europe.
German cable firm Kabel Deutschland (KDG) has sent out a notice of prepayment to lenders after easily exceeding its original target of extending €500m of term loans ‘A1’, ‘A2’ and ‘C1’. The company is understood to be ready to accept extensions from all those lenders who consented, which market participants said represented more than €700m.
US investors are leading demand for the €1bn-equivalent term loan ‘C’ being syndicated to funds as part of German ball bearings manufacturer Schaeffler’s €10bn bond and loan refinancing.
Dollar funding premiums that were introduced to the syndicated loans market last year to make up for European banks’ struggles to access dollar financing are set to become commonplace over the first few months of 2012.
A bank meeting on Thursday morning to discuss the €700m loan backing DS Smith’s takeover of SCA Packaging was well attended, according to a market participant working on the deal.
The shine has come off the offshore renminbi market. Funding costs are rising, bond investors are posturing and some analysts now think that renminbi deposits in Hong Kong will fall this year, after an almost unbroken growth streak for the past two years. That is bad news for loans bankers.
The return of underwriting
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Bookrunners of all global syndicated loans — 2012 (February 2, 2012)
Bail takes Baird’s bait for new debt advisory position
The European Investment Grade Syndicated Loans Roundtable
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