The past 12 months have seen top borrowers embrace equity-linked bonds for the first time in many years. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, issuance in recent years has struggled to keep up with bond redemptions, in large part due to the rarity of investment-grade issuers and reliance on small bonds from high-yield issuers. Finally, blue-chip issuers have woken up to the opportunities on offer, breaking records for high premiums and making negative yields a regular feature of the market – ev

Primary Debt Market Conclave On the occasion of the International Capital Market Association’s Annual General Meeting and Conference in Dublin in May 2016, IFR convened members of ICMA’s Primary Market Practices Committee to discuss some of the key issues facing the debt syndicate and capital markets communities in the midst of regulatory upheaval and amid a volatile and extraordinary set of market circumstances. We dubbed the event IFR’s Primary Debt Market Conclave, to convey its flavour as a

The rankings reflect the activity of borrowers at the parent level. In some cases, where the overwhelming majority of the borrowing was conducted by an entity that was not the parent, the name of the relevant subsidiary has been used. Borrowing by private equity companies has not been rolled up to the parent level, but where possible, has been attributed to the portfolio company. For structured finance deals using separate special purpose vehicles, credit is attributed to the relevant parent group

Dell wowed the market with a blockbuster debt financing for its US$67bn acquisition of data storage company EMC this year – but its success was never a sure thing and some doubted the banks could pull it off just weeks before it cleared. “It’s a big event for the Street,” one banker told IFR when the US$49.5bn debt commitment was signed in October 2015. “The fact that banks have shown up for Dell shows that they have balance sheet.” Indeed, the prior weeks had been rocky in the capital markets a

Italy, the eurozone’s most indebted nation other than Greece, has taken to using syndication to good effect to term out its high levels of debt. A succession of crises in 2011 and 2012 meant peripheral eurozone nations all saw their debt levels jump in a short period of time. Italy’s debt-to-GDP ratio went from 115.4% in 2010 to 132.7% in 2015, behind only Greece (176.9%) in the single currency bloc. Against this backdrop, its recent funding highlight was without question the €9bn 30-year bond p

Charter Communications’ first attempt to take over Time Warner Cable through a hostile bid in early 2014 was thwarted by a takeover offer from rival Comcast – the top player in the industry. Regulatory concerns ultimately forced Comcast to walk away from the deal, paving the way for a second shot from Charter, which, in May of 2015, finally reached an agreement to take over TWC for US$78.7bn, including debt and smaller competitor Bright House Networks for US$10.4bn. Financed with a mix of cash a

Indonesia has won its reputation the hard way, after years of brickbats from bankers and investors critical of its heavy-handed approach to issuance, which involved long drawn-out timelines and what became a signature compromising of price tension in the execution process. But a streamlining of the diligence process and a consequent tightening of execution in recent years has seen Indonesia emerge as a standard-bearer for offshore sovereign issuance from the region. Arguably, it has replaced the

A recovery in oil prices, some success in shedding non-core assets and proven access to market funding have all helped improve risk perceptions surrounding beleaguered state-owned entity Petrobras. The company still has a long row to hoe as it struggles to deleverage amid softer crude oil prices and contends with a corruption scandal that has tainted its reputation worldwide and limited its funding options. But investors are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel after a market-friendly admi

HSBC historically had little need for wholesale funding in the public debt markets. But facing one of the largest targets in Europe due to new regulatory requirements, the bank stunned investors and rival banks alike as it rapidly priced a series of deals in the first half of 2016, tackling those needs head-on.  As one of the world’s major lenders, HSBC must build up safety buffers of debt to meet a requirement known as Total Loss Absorbing Capacity (TLAC) that aims to lift the burden of future

When brewing giant AB InBev began marketing the mega-bond backing its acquisition of SABMiller in early January 2016, the high-grade market had got off to its rockiest start in years. Stress in the credit market was sky high as worries about China, commodities and other headline risk put the primary market in uncertain mood – even on the heels of a record US$1.269trn of issuance in 2015. Pulling the deal off was not just crucial for AB InBev but also for the hoards of other companies that had to

It remains an international scandal. In September last year, German car manufacturer Volkswagen admitted that it had installed secret software to cheat US diesel emissions tests. When the news broke, the push-back was immediate and the whole industry found itself under the microscope. Over the next two weeks, Volkswagen’s share price crashed from around €170 to €92, its five-year CDS jumped from 74bp to 306bp, it found itself embroiled in court cases across the world and had to book €16.2bn of p

After reaping the benefits of a strong run-up in Argentina assets, investors are taking stock and viewing the South American country more cautiously as the new government starts to hit road blocks in its efforts to fix the economy and garner political support. President Mauricio Macri’s rapid rollback of his predecessor’s statist policies and a historic settlement with holdout investors earlier this year quickly made Argentina the new market darling and one of EM’s top performers. The spread on

The last few months have been busy in the Gulf region’s bond markets – all the more notable given the snoozefest that was the beginning of the year. Qatar raised an eye-popping US$9bn at the end of April and was quickly followed by a rush of sub-sovereign trades, but bankers say this is just the thin end of the wedge. “The region’s funding needs over the next 18 months are very high,” said Simon Williams, chief economist for the CEEMEA region at HSBC. “A growing portion of that is going to come

By any measure, it has been a great few years for US debt bankers. More investment-grade paper (US$96.8bn) was issued by US corporates in May 2016 than during any single month in history, breaking a record that was itself just three months old. According to Thomson Reuters data, seven of the 10 biggest months for US corporate debt sales have occurred since the start of 2015. Issuance of investment-grade corporate bonds hit US$1.52trn in the full year 2015, beating a record set the previous year

Despite a flurry of activity at the beginning of 2016 to keep leveraged loan bankers busy, overall business in the year to June was disappointing and new issue volumes considerably lower than during the equivalent period of 2015. It is not as though the phenomenon can be explained away by a lack of support within the investment community: the problem is one of supply. Bankers expect deal flow will return, but volumes are unlikely to catch up with levels seen in recent years. According to Thomson

One cannot help shake the feeling that China is sometimes a victim of its own success. Since opening up to the world from the 1970s, it has lifted millions out of poverty, delivered eye-popping levels of productivity growth, and transformed its labour base, coaxing it off the land and onto the factory floor. So, when Beijing now rolls out a grand plan or simply announces an open-ended intention to deliver something new, investors from Seoul to Singapore to Sydney regard the edict as a fait accom

Hammered by weakness in commodity markets and persistent concerns about US monetary policy tightening – not to mention a multitude of domestic woes – Latin American local currency debt has endured a gloomy few years. Local currency bonds in Latin America were returning more than 10% in US dollar terms by mid-May, higher than any other emerging market region, according to a JP Morgan index. To put that performance in context, Latin American local currency bonds returned –21.69% in dollar terms la