Americas

Bank of Nova Scotia returned to the dollar market with its first new trade in five months this week, after reporting its fiscal first quarter earnings. It was followed by Truist Financial selling an inaugural social bond.

A new special purpose acquisition company backed by Tidjane Thiam, the former CEO of Credit Suisse, has raised $300m from investors.

El Salvador’s bonds retained recent gains on Thursday as EM’s riskiest credits proved resilient to the week’s US Treasury sell-off, with bondholders hoping that Sunday’s mid-term elections will give president Nayib Bukele the political capital he requires to implement an IMF programme.

Emerging market assets took a hit after several days of US rates volatility this week as market participants braced for further gyrations and issuers avoided raising dollar bonds. Market participants are praying that further central bank stimulus will pacify markets and believe that the asset class is far better prepared for higher rates than it was for the 2013 taper tantrum. Oliver West, Lewis McLellan and Mariam Meskin report.

Spreads on Petrobras’s bonds recovered most of their lost ground this week after a sharp sell-off followed Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro sacking the company’s chief executive on Monday. But while strong quarterly results released on Wednesday were a reminder of the state-owned oil and gas giant’s fundamental strength, Bolsonaro’s actions have led to questions around policy decisions in an economy with major fiscal issues.

The sell-off in the US Treasury and equity markets intensified this week as hopes rose of faster economic growth which could lead the Federal Reserve to taper quantitative easing. But that did not stop Japanese telecoms company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp raising $8bn with its first dollar bond issue for nine years, amid a stampede for cheap funding.

Mexican broadcaster TV Azteca, which missed a coupon payment on its international bond earlier this month amid plans for a 'debt reorganisation', surprised analysts by posting strong fourth quarter results this week.

Indian renewable energy company ReNew Power is planning to list on the Nasdaq in the US through an $8bn merger with a special purpose acquisition company (Spac).

Tryg Forsikring found strong demand for a new restricted tier one (RT1) bond in the Swedish market on Wednesday, as it looked to optimise its capital structure in preparation for the purchase of RSA Insurance Group’s Nordic businesses.

América Móvil, the Mexican telecommunications company controlled by Carlos Slim, had to cheapen the terms of its €2.2bn bond exchangeable into shares in Dutch telco KPN, but still achieved a remarkably cheap refinancing of a non-core stake.

Peru is set to test Latin America bond market resilience to both US rates volatility and domestic election uncertainty soon as it meets fixed income investors virtually this week ahead of a proposed euro and dollar new issue.

Petrochemicals producer Alpek, which is owned by major Mexican conglomerate Grupo Alfa, will buy back almost half of its $650m of 4.5% 2022s after wrapping a tender offer on Tuesday.