The €900m dual-tranche, high-yield offering for SIG was the largest sole-managed, high-yield offering ever, and a level of accountability for a single deal manager that is virtually unheard of. Similarly, the €340m bespoke PIK loan offering for gaming company Codere was the sixth capital markets transaction via Credit Suisse since 2003 (raising a total of €1.3bn) and the second sole managed PIK offering for the Codere shareholders.
The SIG deal was one of several that Credit Suisse brought forward by several weeks when it heard the rumblings in US subprime markets. “It meant doing seven-day weeks for six weeks, but we got it done,” says Matthew Cestar, global head of European high yield capital markets. “And it has traded well, even during the dislocation in the marketplace.”
Another great deal was the €1.8bn senior notes offering for Edcon, the largest deal ever done in South Africa. “It’s an important deal because it’s representative of the fact that leveraged finance and emerging markets are beginning to converge as these markets need more sophisticated financial tools,” says Mr Cestar.
Mr Cestar acknowledges that innovative tools will be out of favour for a while, but believes that there will still be plenty of acquisition-driven business from corporate clients who have healthy balance sheets and good cash flows, and that the correctly structured sponsor deals will also be able to get done. “They may be in more defensive areas and with more conservative capital structures but there will be deals,” he says.
