Data Analyst Katrin Kostadinova highlights the most significant financial and corporate legal deals announced or closed in the last week
Americas
Starting this week with a tech deal in the United States, Cisco has acquired BroadSoft for $1.9 billion. The deal will further expand the firm’s cloud and software services.
In the healthcare sector the US group of life and disability businesses of Aetna has been taken over by Hartford Financial for $1.45 billion, with 1,800 of the target company’s employees moving to the new acquirer.
Vitol has acquired Noble Americas, the Noble Group’s oil trading business in America, in a $1.4 billion deal. Noble will now concentrate its focus on coal trading, LNG and freight.
It has been a busy week in the US capital markets as well. Micron Technology has undertaken a $1.4 billion secondary offering, where 33,658,537 shares were publicly offered. Proceeds will be used to repay the remaining $438 million from its issued 7.5% notes and for further repayment of existing debts.
Target, the US discount retailer, has issued $750 million in 3.9% notes, due 2047. Proceeds will be used to finance the Target Corporation’s cash tender offer for all its outstandingnotes and debentures.
Toronto-Dominion Bank has also undertaken two senior notes issues, $1.7 billion 1.9% notes and $300 million floating rate notes, both due 2021. The issues take place under the bank’s $40 billion MTN program.
On the equity side of things, Sea has undertaken an IPO on the NYSE. Shares were valued at $15 and a slightly fewer than 50 million shares were offered. The issuer is an online gaming platform, based in Singapore.
Asia-Pacific
In Singapore, Grab managed to secure a $700 million loan. The borrower is Uber’s competition in Asia and is aiming to build the largest car rental platform there.
A rare bond issue has also taken place this week in China, with the PRC issuing a $2 billion sovereign bond. The notes are listed in two $1 billion tranches –one being offered at 30-40 basis points over US Treasuries maturing in five years and the other at 40-50 basis points due 2027. The sovereign debt sale should set a price benchmark for state owned companies in China, most of which are Asia’s active offshore bond market issuers.
Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)
Bawag has undertaken a Vienna Stock Exchange IPO and managed to raise €1.9 billion. This marks the biggest ever listing in Austria. The offeror is the fourth biggest bank in Austria and is not receiving any net proceeds from the offering.
In the Netherlands, PAI Partners has acquired Refresco for €1.6 billion. In April the company refused a €1.4 billion offer from PAI Partners. Refresco is a producer of bottles for soft drinks and juices across US and Europe.
Another M&A deal that happened this week saw Omantel take over a 12.1% stake in Zain for $1.35 billion in a cross border deal between Kuwait and Oman. Following the deal, Omantel will be the second largest shareholder in the company.
In Turkey, meanwhile, Yapı ve Kredi Bankası has received €800 million and $411 million syndicated loan facilities. The borrower is the fourth largest bank in the country and the sole bookrunner was Bank of America Merrill Lynch.