Americas

MTN issuance out of Asia and Sweden provided some of the week’s bright spots in what was otherwise a quiet start to the year. With the public market now in full swing, bankers expect the private placement market to get up to speed in the coming weeks.

Gracell Biotechnologies has raised $209m from its Nasdaq IPO after increasing the size of the float and pricing the deal above the initial marketed range.

Latin America’s largest e-commerce company MercadoLibre and Mexican cement maker Cemex kept up the hectic conditions in the LatAm primary bond market on Thursday, with the huge order book on MercadoLibre’s inaugural bond issue the clearest indication of risk appetite among EM buyers.

Emerging markets issuers of all flavours ignored convention and stormed into primary bond markets this week, with great success. Renewed warnings about increasing debt ratios in emerging nations were no match for an extraordinarily supportive technical picture as investors piled into deals — even as Democratic victories in US Senate run-offs pushed rates higher. Mariam Meskin and Oliver West report.

HSBC’s aims to boost market share in investment banking and rebalance towards Asia remain intact despite the resignation of one of its most senior lieutenants. But 2021 must be about execution, writes David Rothnie.

The New York Stock Exchange’s flip-flop on whether to delist three Chinese telecommunications giants caused plenty of confusion in the market this week, but mainland companies are still keen to sell shares in the US. Jonathan Breen reports.

Singaporean ride-hailing company Grab Holdings has added a dash of excitement to the loan market with plans to raise $750m from a new outing. Pan Yue reports.

Singapore-based Ivanhoe Capital listed a special purpose acquisition company (Spac) on the New York Stock Exchange this week, raising $240m after increasing the size of the float.

Mexican non-bank lender Crédito Real began investor calls on Wednesday as it looks to take advantage of highly liquid bond markets to partially refinance a bond maturing in 2023, and simultaneously align the covenant packages on all of its senior unsecured bonds.

Latin American DCM bankers hailed Brazilian paper company Klabin’s first sustainability-linked bond (SLB) as an encouraging sign for the ESG debt market in the region, as a huge order book allowed the issuer to tighten by 55bp from initial price thoughts and land well inside its curve.

Bankers said that Brazilian bank BTG Pactual achieved tighter pricing on its green bond than it would have done on a conventional bond, after it became the first Latin American private sector bank to issue such a benchmark in US markets.

Singapore-based Ivanhoe Capital, led by mining billionaire Robert Friedland, is floating a special purpose acquisition company (Spac) on the New York Stock Exchange.