Americas

Mexican miner Industrias Peñoles sold $600m of bonds on Thursday to keep Latin American primary markets ticking over as sell-side bankers expect only a trickle of deals from the region until September.

Ecuador on Thursday afternoon agreed to delay the deadline of its bond restructuring offering by one business day after two funds began legal actions against it. But a US court hearing on Thursday morning was not promising for the litigious investors, and markets believe there is still a high chance of the deal going through.

In recent weeks, Argentina’s public relations agency has been cramming the inboxes of financial journalists as the government goes on the attack in an apparent attempt to guilt-trip dissenting creditors into accepting its restructuring offer.

The enduring health of the dollar new issue market was on display this week as companies emerged from earnings blackout to front-load funding ahead of the latest meeting of the Federal Reserve’s open market committee.

Electric vehicle manufacturer Li Auto sealed a scorching $1.1bn Nasdaq IPO this week, pricing above the marketed range to make it the largest US listing by a Chinese company in nearly two years. The deal proved there is still interest among mainland firms to list in the US, despite rising hostilities between the two countries, writes Jonathan Breen.

Independent firms were the big winners of the 2008 financial meltdown. But they will find the Covid-19 crisis tougher to navigate, as they grapple with a unique set of challenges, writes David Rothnie.

Industrias Peñoles, the world’s largest producer of refined silver, began investor calls on Wednesday ahead of a proposed $600m bond issue with the Mexican mining company largely unaffected by the impact coronavirus pandemic.

The chief financial officer of Panama’s second largest bank, Banistmo, told GlobalCapital that Wednesday’s bond issue was a sign of investor confidence not only in the issuer but in the prospects for the country, as economists say they expect it to be one of the outperformers in Latin America.

The National Football League, the professional American football league in the US, has sold $1.7bn of private placements, according to market sources, to help steer the organisation through the coronavirus.

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has become the first issuer to guard against negative rates in the sterling market by structuring a Sonia-linked senior deal with an artificially high coupon.

Chinese electric vehicle maker Li Auto has brought forward the close and pricing of its up to $950m Nasdaq listing after securing heavy demand for the deal.

The Central American Bottling Corporation (CBC), a major bottler and distributor for drinks giants PepsiCo and AmBev, raised $200m of funding in bond markets on Tuesday in an effort to refinance debt and support its cash balance.