New Fortress forces through US$3bn debt, equity recap

Commerzbank’s issuance of Additional Tier 1 bonds on Tuesday in the midst of UniCredit’s takeover interest, raised many questions. With battle lines drawn, it is hard to know if a takeover is likely to happen, never mind the precise details of how a combined pan-European banking group would be structured. And so, investors that were offered the Commerzbank AT1 bonds not only had to evaluate whether UniCredit chief Andrea Orcel would get his way, but what it would mean for the bonds if he did? Would they become UniCredit bonds? Or would they sit...

US portfolio trading volumes have more than doubled this year as the rapid electronification of corporate bond markets is encouraging more investors to buy and sell large blocks of bonds in one go. There were US$802bn of portfolio trades in US corporate bond markets in the first nine months of the year, according to Tradeweb’s analysis of TRACE data, up from US$389m in 2023. Portfolio trading accounted for a record 11% of US corporate bond trading volumes in September, up from just under 5% at the start of last year. That comes as a growing...

Argentina’s former finance minister Martin Guzman has backed Sri Lanka’s new president Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s plan to review the preliminary debt restructuring agreement reached with creditors by his predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe on September 19, two days before the election. Guzman was part of the Peronist Argentine administration before being dislodged by current president Javier Milei. Guzman's team reached a relatively swift deal with bondholders in 2020. He now says Sri Lanka should recut its own restructuring. In an article with...

Belgian real estate company Montea has completed its €154m rights issue with 91.5% take-up followed by a small rump placing on Friday. Rights were exercised for 2.1m shares out of just under 2.23m offered on a 1-for-9 basis at €67, a 9.3% discount to TERP of €73.84 based on the €74.60 close on September 24. The rights issue was not underwritten but came with a commitment from shareholders Family de Pauw and Patronale Life for at least €26.3m. The remaining 195,364 shares were sold on Friday with shares suspended until completion. Pricing was...

Books were covered early last week on the up to €504.0m IPO of Spanish baker Europastry. Books opened on September 27 and bankers were keen to get a message out before the weekend. Late in the day they said the base deal was covered. Two bankers involved confirmed coverage of the deal, including the greenshoe, after the weekend with new orders continuing to come in during the week, though leads opted not to send out another message on coverage. The offer comprises a €210m primary leg with a secondary sale for €249m–€295m. A 10% greenshoe...

Croatian holding company Bosqar Invest has announced terms for an up to €50m follow-on share sale to support an acquisition. A total of 196,405 shares are on offer at €250–€255 each, representing a 19.9% capital increase. The stock is highly illiquid and last traded on September 20 at €256 per share. Majority shareholder Orso Global has expressed interest to participate at least pro rata to its 51.3% stake, though this is not a pre-emptive offering. Bookbuilding runs from October 7–10. Investors have had good visibility on the offer after the...

Topaz Energy secured C$175.4m (US$130m) from a bought deal financing overnight on Tuesday to fund an acquisition announced simultaneously with the deal launch. Peters & Co and National Bank Financial were joint bookrunners on the pricing of 7m shares at C$25.05, a 4.1% discount versus Tuesday’s TSX close of C$26.13. At nearly one month’s (27 days) volume, the offering looks a heavy lift though Topaz’s 5.1% dividend yield offers some compensation. Topaz's thinly traded shares closed Wednesday’s session at C$26.28, up on the day and above the...

Pennant Group benefited from growing investor interest in healthcare services to secure US$108.5m from a two-day marketed follow-on offering, an unusually long outreach by US standards. Citigroup, Truist Securities, Wells Fargo and RBC Capital Markets late on Wednesday priced a full-sized offering of 3.5m shares at US$31, a steep 13.1% file-to-offer discount. “This was essentially a re-IPO of the company,” said one banker involved in the offering. The offering was five times covered, though 70% of the shares were placed with just five long-only...

Moove Lubricants, which sells Mobil-branded motor oil and products around the world, launched a US$437.5m NYSE IPO on Monday that will allow Brazilian energy firm Cosan and private equity firm CVC Capital Partners to begin cutting their large stakes. A syndicate led by JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Itau, BTG Pactual and Santander is leading the sale of 25m shares at US$14.50–$17.50, amounting to 22.5% of the one-time ExxonMobil unit, for pricing on Thursday. Moove is selling 6.3m new shares, but the rest is secondary selling. Cosan...

Onex Credit Partners is the latest of several CLO managers to opt for a relatively long, five-year reinvestment period as it looks to price its latest European CLO, OCP Euro CLO 2024-11. The manager has previously stuck with a more standard roughly 4.6-year format. The long reinvestment period translates into a correspondingly long weighted-average life for the bonds. The €246.8m Triple A rated Class As of the new deals have an expected WAL of 6.4 years. But the additional duration does not appear to be putting off investors. The Class As of...

French budget hotel chain B&B Hotels is in the market with a €350m senior secured term loan B add-on that will fund a distribution to shareholders and support general corporate purposes. The loan matures in March, the same as the existing €1.25bn TLB. Pricing is guided at 425bp over Euribor with a 0% floor and a 99.5–99.75 OID, revised from 99–99.5 at launch. Expected corporate and instrument ratings are B3/B. Mandated lead arrangers and physical bookrunners are Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Credit Agricole is agent. Goldman Sachs Asset...

Three months after flagging plans to raise equity, Brazilian utility Eneva is moving ahead with a R$3.2bn (US$590m) follow-on stock sale to fund the purchase of four power plants from an affiliate of Banco BTG Pactual. Conveniently, BTG Pactual (the bank’s investment banking arm) is leading the sale of 230m shares at a fixed R$14, with assistance from Itau and Bradesco. There is a an option to sell another 70m shares, which typically is exercised. The priority rights subscription period closes on October 8, ahead of pricing on October 10....