Americas

Banks are seeing light at the end of the tunnel as they emerge from major cost cutting exercises at the same time as economies around the world begin to emerge, erratically, from pandemic restrictions. Now the question is whether there will be enough capital markets business to go around.

Moelis & Co supercharged its capital markets team last year just in time to take advantage of the booming market for special purpose acquisition companies (Spacs). But as the craze subsides, the team continues to expand, with the firm looking to generate repeat business from clients that appreciate its product-agnostic approach.

The impact of the allocation of new IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) on the most stressed developing economies could depend on whether a politically sensitive proposed reallocation of the assets from wealthier nations to vulnerable ones is successful. And though the new SDRs may reduce sovereign bond issuance, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, not all investors believe there will be a notable effect on EM debt.

Mining company Gran Colombia Gold Corp sold a senior unsecured $300m five year note on Wednesday, with bankers saying that the company had offered a pricing pick-up that could be attributed to the use of proceeds — to fund a new project in Guyana.

The US regulator’s demand for more disclosures from Chinese companies planning New York listings may be a death knell for the flow of IPOs between the two markets — but it could go a long way towards offering investors some much-needed transparency.

Power company Genneia has become the latest Argentine company to look to refinance bonds with an exchange considered distressed by rating agencies, as capital controls in the country limit corporate issuers’ access to hard currency. Unusually, the distressed exchange will result in the issuance of green bonds.

Andrés Pérez, who has led Chile through two consecutive record breaking years of international bond issuance, has left his position as head of international finance at the Latin American sovereign to become chief economist at Itaú Chile.

An international consortium is seeking a $275m loan to support its acquisition of DuPont Clean Technologies.

US-listed hybrid electric vehicle maker Li Auto has hit the road for its Hong Kong secondary listing. The deal could raise around HK$13.1bn ($1.68bn) based on the last close of its US stock.

China’s securities regulator is pushing for closer co-operation with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to support overseas listings.

TechnipFMC, the French-US energy technologies group, executed on Thursday night its second block sale of shares in Technip Energies, the engineering and construction subsidiary it span off in February. Despite the holiday season, the parent achieved a fractionally higher price than in the last trade and a significantly tighter discount.

It is difficult these days, if not impossible, to find a bank that does not have an official policy or target to boost diversity and inclusion. By pushing them out of their comfort zones, could the pandemic help finally turn these aspirations into reality?