Americas

Chinese road freight company ForU Worldwide is planning a Nasdaq offering of American depositary shares (ADS). It is looking to raise at least $100m.

Artisan Acquisition Corp, a blank cheque company backed by Hong Kong tycoon Adrian Cheng, has tapped global investors for a $300m Nasdaq IPO.

Uruguay, considered the most promising credit story among Latin America's investment grade sovereigns, raised $1.74bn-equivalent in pesos and dollars on Thursday, becoming the first sovereign from the region to issue local currency abroad in 2021 — as it was in 2020.

Guarantor: Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board

Amazon grabbed headlines by pouncing opportunistically into the market and pricing an $18.5bn bond this week that included a record tight spread over Treasuries on a sustainability-labelled two year note, but the bigger story was inflation fears skewing the curve steeper.

Investors in Latin America are growing increasingly concerned that social unrest in Colombia, where tax reform plans are in tatters and more than 40 people have been killed, is a sign of things to come, with sovereigns facing severe pressure as they attempt to improve credit profiles that have been battered by the coronavirus pandemic. Yet sovereign bond markets are seeing only modest, short-lived sell-offs, given the enormous liquidity still in bond markets.

In the film 'Annie Hall', Woody Allen recounts two diners’ experience at a restaurant. “One of them says: ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says: ‘Yeah, I know; and such small portions.’”

The Province of Buenos Aires extended the participation of its restructuring offer for the 16th time this week, but bondholders denied the province's claim that they had requested the extension.

A rotation out of technology stocks and concerns about market capacity have taken some of the steam out of a booming convertible bond market.

Mexican food company Grupo Bimbo proceeded with a 30 year bond issue on Wednesday despite a US inflation reading that sent Treasury yields to their widest levels in a month. A strong bid from US investment grade buyers ensured a bumper order book, but some observers were surprised that the issuer had not delayed its deal in the face of a tricky market.

GlobalCapital talked to Sarim Farooqi, senior vice-president and treasurer at Laurentian Bank, about the issuer’s recent C$250m five year debut covered bond, established under its new C$2bn covered bond programme, and what the bank’s next moves in the covered bond market could be.

Two SSA borrowers landed in the euro bond market on Wednesday while a third lined up business for next week. Issuers may still be achieving good results but bankers believe conditions are turning bad.