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Making the right calls
The European leveraged finance market started the year with talk of jumbo buyouts. That all changed from February when market liquidity cratered and many banks found themselves stuck with highly leveraged M&A debt with nowhere to place it. For its ability to guide issuers and investors through challenging markets, Deutsche Bank is IFR's EMEA Leveraged Finance House.
Cruise control
Royal Caribbean’s US$2bn bond offering in September demonstrated how a cruise line still emerging from the sector’s pandemic-related slowdown could be smart and innovative in one of 2022's most difficult weeks for high-yield.
Reverse M&A
Faith in a comeback in high-yield issuance after a disastrous summer was fading fast until Apollo-owned Italian gaming company Lottomatica broke a two-month drought in the euro primary market on September 14 with an M&A bond.
Slick navigation
Entegris, a supplier of materials for the semiconductor market, navigated unprecedented global volatility in the debt markets to price a US$2.495bn term loan B to back its purchase of CMC Materials.
Timing is everything
In a year beset by volatility, banks on the financing of KKR's purchase of a majority stake in Dutch bottling company Refresco gave the market a master class in finding a window. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and KKR underwrote the €3.4bn-equivalent financing on February 22, just 48 hours before Russia invaded Ukraine.
The Middle East was one of the few bright spots globally in equity capital markets in 2022, with IPOs regularly flooded with billions of dollars of demand. Bankers believe that not only is issuance sustainable, but the diversity of sectors, types of deals and even geographic location of companies tapping the market will expand, ensuring the region is a significant part of future ECM activity.
The UK’s LDI crisis was one of the most shocking events in the financial markets in 2022. What went wrong and what happens now?
So-called perfect storms are becoming more frequent in the financial world. The UK will need to tread carefully to avoid being caught in another one.
Buffeted by Covid-19 and caught in the crosshairs of Sino-US tensions and an authoritarian Chinese regime, Hong Kong’s ability to adapt is under sharp focus as it seeks to remain relevant as a global financial centre.
As Japan makes the crucial move to net-zero carbon emissions and other environmental targets, it is relying on transition finance as the mechanism to get there.
