Americas

The World Bank visited the Maple market on Thursday to print the largest ever seven year Canadian dollar bond from a non-domestic issuer, raising C$750m ($569.8m) with a new sustainable development bond (SDB).

Emerging market bond demand appeared near boiling point this week as a slew of borrowers priced new debt through their curves and even high yielding credits were able to stretch to longer maturities. While market participants acknowledged it surely cannot get any better than this and that conditions show little connection to economic reality, they are struggling to see what could sour sentiment in the near term. Mariam Meskin and Oliver West report.

Argentina’s recently restructured international bond curve looks further than ever from the 10% yield target that the finance minister had set. New currency controls aimed at halting the decline in international reserves have had a catastrophic impact on both corporate and sovereign bond markets, and are likely to spell major trouble in the long term, analysts say.

BBVA’s Mexican subsidiary made an opportunistic return to the international markets on Tuesday, raising dollar funding at a record low cost ahead of a bond maturing next March.

Delta Air Lines raised $6bn this week, joining the September stampede by companies to plug their bank accounts and lock in cheap funding.

If UBS’s reported exploration of a merger with Credit Suisse actually leads to a tie-up at some point, it would create a formidable European investment bank.

Amy West has been named global head of a new sustainable finance and corporate transitions group at TD Securities, which becomes the latest bank to launch a new unit working in this area.

RBC Capital Markets’ expansion in European investment banking came in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. A decade on, the coronavirus pandemic has presented it with a very different set of challenges.

NN Bank extended along its soft bullet covered bond curve this week, following its strategy to fund in the ultra-long end. A tightly priced five year from Fédération des Caisses Desjardins du Québec (CCDJ) followed the deal later in the week.

Fédération des caisses Desjardins du Québec (CCDJ), Compagnie de Financement Foncier (CFF) and Sparebanken Vest Boligkreditt (Svegno) were set to issue covered bonds with zero new issue premiums on Thursday. But after a surprisingly busy week, the market is now "running out of steam" with order books were much slower to build and subscription ratios far lower than transactions issued earlier this week.

US-listed Chinese companies Zai Lab and Baozun have kicked off secondary offerings on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, adding further momentum to the city’s already hot equity capital market.

Data centre operator Aligned has closed a $1bn sustainability-linked debt financing, marking the arrival in this industry of a green finance tool that is growing in popularity.