Americas

Uruguay’s dollar bonds are hot property, but the sovereign is planning to focus its international bond issuance efforts on its domestic currency in 2021 as it looks to develop the peso market and increase the share of its debt burden in the currency.

Banks that mostly missed out on last year's trading and origination windfall would find it difficult to make up for lost time by leaning into investment banking; that ship has probably already sailed.

EM bond buyers gave Guara Norte, a special purpose vehicle for Brazilian floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit Cidade de Ilhabela, a warm welcome on its first bond market outing as investors say that emerging market high yield corporates offer the best chance for outperformance.

Convertible bonds are continuing to attract more mainstream attention, following dramatic outperformance of the asset class over the past year. This is driving new investors to the market.

HH&L Acquisition Corp has bagged $360m after increasing the size of its New York Stock Exchange IPO, in yet another sign that Asia-focused blank cheque companies are surging in popularity.

Argentine oil and gas company YPF amended its proposed bond exchange for the fourth time on Sunday evening, again upping the cash payment for holders of its March 2021s in a move that the issuer says has the support of the most stubborn group of bondholders.

This week in Keeping Tabs: do investors want companies to fail on sustainability-linked bond targets? And what what happens to the economy under a Joe Biden presidency in the US?

Huge demand for exposure to biotech companies among US equity investors is continuing to drive UK firms to list on the other side of the Atlantic through an IPO on the Nasdaq. On Thursday, Immunocore, a late-stage biotech firm focused on T-cell technology, priced an enlarged offering on the exchange and, on Friday, UK healthcare investor Syncona announced it was exploring a US IPO for one of its portfolio companies.

Peruvian government-owned oil company Petroperu clinched most of the remaining financing of the long-awaited modernisation of its Talara refinery on Thursday, opting to reopen bonds first issued three years ago at a high dollar price rather than place a new benchmark.

Brazilian auto parts supplier Tupy and Peruvian mining company Volcán became the latest in a string of Latin American high yield companies to take advantage of extremely welcoming bond markets to improve their maturity profiles.

Bonds issued by Argentine oil and gas company YPF were up and down this week before ending largely flat as the company failed to find a consensus among investors regarding its proposed exchange offer. A March 23 maturity payment looms large.

Apple printed the biggest US corporate bond so far this year, as companies roared out of earnings blackouts this week to lock in cheap financing.