Synthetic outdoor sports and leisure surfaces firm Sport Group is marketing a €400m 2031 TLB guided at E+450bp and 98.5 to back a take over by KPS from Equistone, its owner since 2015.

Before going to syndication, both private credit funds and banks pitched debt packages at up to 4.5x leverage. You can read our coverage in full here. Private university group Universidad Europea came later on in the week with a €675m 2031 TLB to finance its acquisition by EQT Infrastructure. Permira sold a majority stake but will stay as a minority shareholder in the business alongside management.

Price talk hasn’t been announced yet but the company’s last TLB priced at E+450bps back in October 23. A couple of add–ons followed this year.

Triton Partners is putting the Dutch V&N Group in the syndicated market with a €465 2031 TLB after taking over the company from VolkerWessels. We reported on the transaction during pre-marketing — you can read the scoop here.

These latest LBO loans are smaller in size compared to the Alter Domus €1.3bn TLB that dominated the market earlier this month, but they are a good indication of where things could go in the months ahead.

“Interest rates will be lower later on in the year, and this gives support for LBOs,” a second banker commented. “We are not in post-Covid times but a lot of sponsors are looking at sale opportunities, even though valuations remain high”.

Leveraged loans

LBOs might have taken the headlines lately, but other types of deals have also made a comeback lately. Repricings have bounced back for large debt structures after the January’s wave — read our report here.

As an investor told us: “Repricings come when borrowers anticipate rates coming down. There’s a lot more confidence around this now and companies are taking advantage of that.”

The European Central Bank is widely expected to cut its interest rates by 25bps in the next June meeting — even after a jump in inflation in May — giving borrowers a potential chance to save some cash on debt payments.

Animal health firm Ceva Sante, a well known name in the leveraged market, repriced its 2030 TLB, which it issued in November to refinance its previous €2bn loan. Pricing went to E+350-375bps from E+375-400bps and the deal was upsized to €1.875bn. The transaction included a $540m tranche guided at S+350-375bps.

Specialty chemicals firm Nouryon also took the occasion to reprice its 2028 euro TLB, marketing a new €1.692bn TLB at E+350-375bps. The loan currently offers a E+425bps coupon.

Refinancing deals still account for the majority of loan volume, as companies rush to tackle the 2026 maturity wall during favourable market conditions.

“Everything that has a 18-month maturity from now and trading at normal level is a good candidate for refinancing,” a buysider said.

Of notable size is Triton-backed specialty pharmaceutical business Pharmanovia, which is seeking to push its maturities by 3.5 years to 2030 with a €980m TLB guided at E+425 bps and 99.5 — increased from its current size of €832m at E+400bps.

We've also had a couple of BSL debutants, with fast food chain QSRP coming to the syndicated markets to refinance a unitranche — a move that has become trendy among private credit borrowers lately — and privately owned production company Mediawan looking to refinance its existing debt in the syndicated market.

QSRP tightened its 2031 €500m TLB to the lower end of the guidance and priced it at E+525bps from E+525-550bps, but also applied some docs changes to wrap the deal up.

Check out the list of leveraged loans that priced recently below:

Here is a list of leveraged loan transactions still in the market:

Weekly loan movers

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High yield

The leveraged finance market is made of windows, and after a strong start for Q2 European high yield issuance has suffered a bit of a setback this week in favour of stronger loan volumes.

Still, the HY space showed resilience after some reverberations from volatility in government bonds — the German 10y Bund broke the 2.7% level this week.

According to Barclays research, the PE HY index spread continues to flirt with the bottom of the 300bps-350bps range that has persisted for much of this year, at 311bps as of Wednesday.

We’ve only had a couple of HY launches this week, but both feature a dual structure of fixed and floating rate notes.

French restaurant owner Bertrand Franchise closed its €300m SSNs at 6.5% and €800m of FRNs at E+375 bps, and Lithuanian mobile operator Bite priced €420m SSNs at 6% and €500m of floating notes at E+350 bps.

Check out the other high yield deals from European issuers that priced recently below:

There are no other high yield transactions currently in the market.

Weekly high yield movers

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Forward pipeline

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