Two Nigerian firms, Access bank, IHS raise $1.1 bln credits

Two Nigerian firms raised $1.1 billion credits between them this week, but stalled pricing levels suggest investors struggled to absorb so much Nigeria risk.

Access Bank launched its $300 million five-year deal at 10.75 percent. Having set IPTs at high 10s, it appears the bank, like IHS Nigeria, failed to shift the pricing needle.
Access also ran an exchange offer on its $350 million 2017s, which was dependent on the new notes being at least  $300 million.
Access announced the indicative results of the tender on Thursday. The bank received exchange instructions for just under $113
million.
IHS Nigeria raise $800 million 5-year at  9.5 percent.
Barclays, Citigroup and JP Morgan are bookrunners on the new notes.
Expected issue ratings are B/B.
RCS and RDS dropped the proposed Romanian leu leg of its deal. The company opted instead to refinance the outstanding €450 million bond via a new loan and new upsized euro transaction.
Cable Communications printed €350 million seven-year notes at 5 percent on Wednesday, having originally proposed raising €275 million in a euro transaction and €100 million equivalent in a leu tranche.
Looking ahead, Ahli United Bank Kuwait finishes its roadshow on Monday, followed by Polyus Gold on Tuesday and, of course, Saudi.
In flows, EPFR say mutual funds have kept faith with EM bonds during October.
"Emerging Markets Bond Funds took in fresh money for the 15th straight week, their longest such run since 3Q14, with hard currency funds outgaining their local currency counterparts by a 3-to-1 margin," said EPFR researchers.
As for today's conditions, Europe Stoxx futures are up 0.6 percent to take back some of the 0.9 percent lost by cash yesterday. S&Ps are unchanged after the index closed -0.3 percent but well off the lows. Synthetic credit has a mild bid with the Main and SenFin -1bp and the Crossover -3bp.
Looking at markets overnight and yesterday's negative data/stock theme looks less of a worry this morning. The Nikkei is slightly higher (+0.5 percent) as USD/JPY pops back up through 104.00, the Hang Seng, for once this week, is higher too (+0.8 percent) and the Shanghai Comp, having managed to shrug off that poor trade data yesterday, is flat again after higher than forecast inflation numbers.
On to today and there is a busy session ahead in terms of scheduled events with plenty of central bank talk and a heavy US slant this afternoon.
Look out in particular for the three US banking heavyweights due to release Q3 earnings before the NY open. A rash of big data pointers follows, and to cap it all Yellen speaks this evening although not until European markets have closed for the day.
(C) IFR News