Upcoming plant helps Avantium pitch rights issue

It’s taken four months since the mandate was originally announced, but at last African Development Bank has issued its hybrid bond offering, the first of its kind in the publicly syndicated market by a supranational. Like anything pioneering, there was a huge amount of groundwork involved, from drawing up the structure, to identifying the appropriate investors, to calculating where pricing should land. Triple A rated development banks usually price deals with limited spreads over their underlying benchmarks, and at relatively low yields. It’s a...

A strong pipeline of new issues is building in the European CLO market, supported by tighter bond pricing, a broad and active Triple A buyer base with refreshed budgets, and good value relative to the US market. There's just one thing missing: Loans. The primary market took a few weeks to get going this year but is now off to a reasonably strong start, with three CLOs having priced in the fourth week of January, excluding resets. KKR Credit brought the month's tally up to four on Friday with the pricing of Avoca CLO XXIX through arranger BNP...

Swiss car subscription start-up Carvolution has finalised a securitisation of up to SFr200m to fund the expansion of its fleet, a deal which could be the first step towards a public ABS offering, according to CEO and co-founder Olivier Kofler. Barclays is the senior lender and structured credit investor Waterfall Asset Management is providing the mezzanine financing for the securitisation, which will fuel Carvolution’s further growth in Switzerland in the next 18–24 months and is backed by its fleet. Founded in 2018, the company offers car...

Elstree Funding No. 4, a securitisation of first-lien and second-lien UK residential mortgages originated by West One Secured Loans, a subsidiary of Enra Specialist Finance, was priced at Sonia plus 112bp for the Triple A rated senior notes and 145bp for the B tranche on Thursday, in a further sign of a tightening market since the start of the year. “From a pricing perspective, we hadn’t anticipated that we would get into the levels that you see for this trade,” said a banker close to the transaction. Lloyds (sole arranger), Barclays and...

London-based embedded finance provider YouLend has reached a private securitisation deal with JP Morgan as senior lender and Castlelake as subordinated debt provider to fund up to £4bn of revenue-based financing to small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK and European Union. The company, which lends to merchants through partnerships with payment service providers such as Mastercard and Dojo and e-commerce platforms such as eBay, said the deal would reduce its cost of capital, allowing it to offer competitive rates and terms. Previous...

Designer and manufacturer of gaming products AGS has closed a US$564.9m loan to reprice its first-lien term loan that matures in February 2029. The loan was priced at 375bp over SOFR with a 0.75% floor and no credit spread adjustment. It was sold at par. It comes with a 101 soft call protection for six months. Corporate and first-lien ratings are B2/B. Jefferies and Truist arranged the transaction. IT company Science Applications International Corp tightened the OID on a US$510.25m senior secured term loan B that repays a TLB due in 2025 and...

As high-grade issuers churn out deals at record monthly levels, the primary market for US high-yield bonds is also having its day in the sun, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale. During the last three days of January, junk-rated issuers raised closed to US$9bn, topping off a month that saw primary volumes reach just over US$31bn as borrowers largely sought to refinance looming debt maturities. That made it the busiest January since 2021, when the asset class saw volumes hit US$52.8bn before the Federal Reserve started its aggressive rate hikes...

In the aftermath of a successful launch, Rocket Lab USA turned its attention to the task of funding operations by raising US$300m in the convertible bond market. Rocket Lab’s profitability trajectory is a distant horizon, making a CB a predictable funding stopgap. Rocket Lab shares plunged 17.1% during marketing on Thursday to US$4.02, amid short-selling by arbitrage investors seeking to anchor further downside. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley priced the CB at a 4.25% coupon and 27.5% conversion premium, the investor-friendly ends of...

Technology consulting firm Devoteam is repricing a €565m first-lien term loan due December 2027. The loan is guided at 400bp-425bp over Euribor, from the current margin of 450bp, with a 0% floor. It is offered at par. There is a reinstated six-month margin ratchet holiday. There are two 25bp margin step-downs at the same leverage threshold as for the existing loan at 2.5 times and 2 times. The loan carries 101 soft call protection for six months. Existing corporate and instruments ratings are B2/B. KKR Capital Markets is the sole active...

Corbus Pharmaceuticals capitalised on investor enthusiasm for its experimental cancer drug by raising US$82.2m from an overnight stock sale. Jefferies led the sale of 4.33m Corbus shares at a fixed price of US$19, a 24.5% discount to Tuesday's US$25.16 closing price. The hefty discount reflected the biotech's recent meteoric stock surge but proved only a temporary speed bump, the shares bouncing to US$26.49 in the following session to hand investors in the offering a nearly 40% return. Corbus shares were trading at just US$8.44 before the...

A Labour administration in the UK would not seek to overturn the current government’s decision to lift the cap on bankers’ bonuses, which came into effect at the end of October. The cap originally stemmed from European Union regulations that took effect in 2014, which the UK implemented but was free to scrap after its departure from the EU in 2020. The rule means bonuses for those paid more than €1m in basic salary are capped at twice their fixed pay. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves told the BBC the cap was the right thing to do “to rebuild the...

American Healthcare REIT is seeking to raise US$840m from an NYSE IPO to relieve funding pressure and smooth the way for existing shareholders to cash out of an aging investment. A syndicate led by Bank of America and Morgan Stanley on Monday launched marketing on the sale of 56m shares at US$12–$15 for pricing after the market close on Tuesday February 6. If all goes well, American Healthcare will use the proceeds to repay some of its current US$2.5bn debt load, cutting leverage to 6.5 times forecast Ebitda for the 12 months ending September...