IFR Awards event at Haberdashers’ Hall

Dutch energy supplier Scholt Energy called off its Amsterdam float on Friday, the day after books were due to close on its €96m–€114m IPO. The company said there was a lot of interest from national and international investors but the market was busier than expected, resulting in "fragmented interest". "The size of the transaction was too small for potential investors in this crowded market. The existing shareholders have therefore decided not to offer their shares on the stock exchange," the company said. A banker involved said the IPO was...

France's Icade Sante, which invests in healthcare real estate across Europe, kicked off pre-marketing last Monday for the Paris float announced on September 10. The company is targeting at least €800m in fresh capital, and the deal also includes a smaller secondary tranche. The timetable is flexible but pricing will likely be in around three weeks. BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole/Kepler Cheuvreux, JP Morgan and Societe Generale are joint global coordinators on the float, and joint bookrunners alongside Bank of America, Natixis and UBS.

Par Technology fell short of its funding plans after opting to downsize and restructure a planned two-part equity-linked raise after investors reacted negatively. Par, which provides software for restaurants and governments, increased the size of a five-year convertible bond to US$235m and roughly 900,000 new shares (US$50m), an overhaul from the US$200m and 1.5m shares marketed for one day on Tuesday. Par shares tanked 18.1% to US$56.01 while the deal was being marketed, the only saving grace being pricing of the equity at US$56.00 to set...

Three new issues CLOs priced last week with their Triple A tranches landing at 102bp discount margins over three-month Euribor. On Wednesday, BlueBay Asset Management set the tone when it priced the €246m of Class A notes in its new issue CLO, BBAM European CLO II, at a 102bp DM. The €406.6m vehicle's reinvestment period ends on July 15 2026 and its non-call on July 15 2023 and priced via Barclays. That 102bp level was also the DM for the €245.1m Class A tranche in Blackstone Ireland’s Dillon’s Park CLO, which sole arranger and lead manager...

Atom Mortgage Securities, the CMBS of a property portfolio comprising four life science/ office business parks and two logistics parks in the UK, landed on Friday with £193.4m of Class A notes at 80bp over Sonia. The £382.9m deal securitises a loan advanced by Bank of America Europe, Morgan Stanley Bank and Standard Chartered to support Brookfield’s acquisition of the properties. Joint arrangers Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, with fellow joint lead manager Standard Chartered, priced the seniors tighter than the 95bp over Sonia spread...

Porch, a home-services software company, became the latest former SPAC to raise capital in the convertible bond market last week, securing an upsized US$385m from the sale of a five-year CB. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Oppenheimer upped the offering size from US$350m to US$385m ahead of pricing at a 0.75% coupon and 32.5% conversion premium, the mid-point of 0.5%–1% and 30%–35% price talk marketed for one day on Monday. “The market continues to be very strong,” said a banker that worked on the offering. “Issuance should remain active until...

Keter, a BC Partners-backed maker of furniture made from recycled materials, joined the long queue of ESG-friendly companies looking to go public by filing for a US$100m all-primary NYSE IPO on Thursday. The deal size is more likely to be in the range of US$500m, given a portion of the proceeds are earmarked to repay the high-cost debt BC Partners used to acquire the business in 2016. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America and Jefferies are joint global coordinators, with six other banks (including BC Partners) enlisted as joint bookrunners...

Claire Gambles has been appointed as a partner at EY-Parthenon, the UK restructuring arm of accountancy firm EY. She joins from Deloitte, where she led the firm's managed exit business. She will report to Alan Hudson, EY-Parthenon's head of turnaround and restructuring strategy. EY has retained its UK restructuring practice despite speculation that it might be sold. Earlier this year KPMG's UK restructuring practice was sold to HIG Capital and renamed Interpath Advisory, and Deloitte sold its business to consultancy Teneo, which is backed by...

In what continues to be a big source of secondary ECM, former SPACs Opendoor Technologies and MP Materials helped facilitate sell-downs by financial backers overnight on Monday, both executed as bought deals. In the larger of the two blocks, SoftBank raised US$473.2m via the sale of 28m Opendoor shares, reducing its stake to 7.7% from 12.4%. Notably this was its first sell-down by the Japanese investment conglomerate dating back to a US$535m Series E private investment in 2018, before the December 2020 merger of Opendoor with Chamath...

US ECM bankers are planning another exhaustive test of the buyside's deal appetite, having already scheduled 14 IPOs seeking US$5.6bn in the coming week before the seemingly inevitable launch of another frenetic round of IPOs, follow-ons and CBs as early as Monday. Though it remains to be seen at what point investors push back against the wall of issuance, and many strategists are calling for a near-term market correction, syndicate desks see no let-up in deal activity for the time being. Next week's IPO binge is led by restaurant software firm...

September’s structured finance pipeline was filled last week with new issue announcements for Irish RMBS, Portuguese and Belgian ABS and a deal from a debut originator. Auxmoney Investments is introducing itself to the ABS market with a near full capital stack deal, Fortuna Consumer Loan ABS 2021. The originator, the investment arm of digital lending platform auxmoney, hired structured finance expertise earlier this year when Boudewijn Dierick joined from BNP Paribas, where he headed the bank's ABS and covered bond structuring team. BNP Paribas...

Proving delay is not death in this market, Neogames, an Israel-based developer of online lottery games, late on Monday priced a US$120m secondary stock sale that had failed to be priced in the previous week. JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank led the all-secondary sale of 3.4m Neogames shares, or 13.5% of the company, at US$36, an 18.7% all-in discount versus the US$44.27 launch price. The deal was originally expected to be priced on the previous Thursday, but the stock was hit hard during the marketing phase, trading as low as US$36.09 just ahead...