IFR readership survey

Bankers say that up to potentially 10 European CLO managers, including Blackstone Credit, Investcorp and Sound Point Capital Management, are working on plans to raise capital to take advantage of slumping loan prices, but warn that there may not be enough room in the market for all of them to succeed. There are roughly 70 CLO warehouses open in Europe but managers have been facing difficulties terming them out in the bond market as volatility has persisted since the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February. Although cash prices for...

Faced with big aspirations and heavy losses, EV battery equipment maker Aspen Aerogels cancelled a planned US$375m equity combo issue late on Wednesday following a collapse in its shares that would have made the raising larger than its entire market capitalisation. "It was their decision [to cancel]," one banker involved in the financing told IFR. “This was always going to be a question of price impact and the cost of capital.” Aspen had been seeking to sell US$225m of common equity alongside a US$150m CB issue. Despite extensive pre-marketing...

Almost no listed companies are on track for a 1.5C global temperature rise and fewer than half are even aligning to the upper end of the Paris Agreement range, according to research from MSCI. The findings come as more than 250 financial institutions have demanded environmental data from major non-disclosing companies. MSCI calls its quarterly Net Zero Tracker a “gauge of progress by the world’s listed companies toward curbing climate risk”. The latest issue of the tracker, which is based on the firm’s forward-looking “implied temperature rise...

What is it about Boots and leveraged finance? As the UK teeters on the brink of another recession, the collapse of Walgreens Boots Alliance's £5bn sale of the British pharmacy chain raises the spectre of the last financial crisis, when a £9bn loan to fund the £12bn buyout of the same company broke the leveraged finance market in 2007. Investors rejected that deal when it came to market, marking the start of a liquidity crisis for banks that had billions of loans funding private equity acquisitions on their balance sheets. This time around,...

Utility company National Fuel Gas signed a US$250m 364-day delayed-draw term loan to repay debt and for general corporate purposes. The DDTL features a 10bp ticking fee and its margin is 112.5bp over SOFR, plus a 10bp credit spread adjustment. Funds are available to be drawn until September 28. That date may be extended to October 28. The credit agreement limits National Fuel Gas’s debt to capitalisation ratio to a maximum of 0.65 times. Wells Fargo is administrative agent. The other lenders are Bank of America, PNC Bank, US Bank and TD Bank....

SPAC promoters are doing everything they can to keep the much-maligned product alive. Tech-focused Trailblazer Merger filed on Thursday for a US$67.5m IPO structured with incentives to deter redemptions at the back end. LifeSci Capital and Ladenberg Thalmann are joint bookrunners. Trailblazer hopes to sell 6.75m units at US$10. Each unit comprises one share, one Class 1 warrant and one Class 2 warrant, both exercisable at US$11.50. However, investors will only get the second set of warrants if they do not redeem going into a merger deal, if...

Utility company Consolidated Edison has signed a US$400m 364-day term loan. The facility was fully drawn on its effective date of June 30. Funds are for general corporate purposes. Until November 30, sole lender and administrative agent Barclays is also committed to provide an additional up to US$200m in incremental term loans. The commitments and borrowings are subject to mandatory termination and pre-payment with the net cash proceeds of certain equity issuances or asset sales by Con Edison. The margin is 75bp over SOFR, plus a 10bp credit...

Faced with dwindling cash levels and battered share prices, biotechnology companies are being forced to come up with creative financing solutions to fund drug development. 89Bio, a later-stage biotech focused on liver disease, conducted a follow-on stock overnight on Tuesday that saw it raise US$94.5m, more than its entire market capitalisation and nearly doubling its cash holdings. In addition to common stock, investors that participated received warrants struck at a premium price, providing them upside if 89Bio successfully commercialises two...

Ghana, one of West Africa's largest economies, will hold formal talks with the International Monetary Fund on a support package, the government said on Friday, after hundreds took to the streets protesting against mounting hardship, Reuters reported. The cabinet gave its support for the decision at a meeting on Thursday, following a phone conversation between President Nana Akufo-Addo and IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva. Ghana, a gold, cocoa and oil producer, has until now refused to seek IMF support to rescue an economy crippled...

Saudi fast food operator Alamar Foods attracted SR58bn (US$15.5bn) of institutional demand for its SR1.22bn IPO that closed bookbuilding on Monday. Shares were priced at the top of the SR103–SR115 range, as indicated the previous week. Pricing implies a market capitalisation of SR2.93bn with the offer of 10.63m secondary shares representing a 41.69% free-float. The larger sizing compared with the typical 30% IPO in Saudi was driven by the exit of private equity house The Carlyle Group, which is the sole seller in the IPO. Carlyle sold its...

In a torrid first half of the year for investment banking on the primary side, fees from mergers and acquisitions have been a rare bright spark, but if current stormy conditions prevail even that could be snuffed out. The bulk of M&A revenue usually comes when a deal is completed. Last year’s flurry of proposed transactions – a record for M&A – meant a good harvest of deals were completed in the first six months of 2022. The value of completed deals was U$1.95trn, up 6% from 2021, according to Refinitiv data. Most banks have therefore indicated...

Borr Drilling is in ongoing talks with its creditors over the refinancing and extension of its 2023 maturities. The refinancing of the company’s existing syndicated loans, Hayfin facility and US$350m of convertible bonds was a condition of the deferral of about US$1bn of debt maturities to 2025 from 2023, agreed in December 2019. Borr originally aimed to complete the refinancing by the end of March, but subsequently extended the deadline to the end of June. In order to put the right capital structure in place, supporting a low cash break-even...