Americas

Mexico state-owned utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) returned to the Formosa market for the fourth time on Wednesday, clinching its largest trade yet in Taiwan.

One of the derivatives industry’s largest annual conferences was cancelled on Tuesday, after the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus made the event unviable in the view of the organisers.

Equity capital markets bankers were celebrating a rare piece of good macroeconomic news on Wednesday morning: the surprise surge of former US vice-president Joe Biden in his bid to win the Democratic nomination to be presidential candidate in November’s election.

The US Federal Reserve’s emergency 50bp cut in interest rates on Tuesday failed to reassure markets. The US and European response to the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak needs to incorporate targeted fiscal policy as well.

The World Bank and Assicurazioni Generali are each giving the insurance-linked securities (ILS) they issue a sustainability label, as the market attempts to burnish its credentials for investors concerned with environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria. Both issuers are imitating conventional green bond programmes by focusing on direct use of proceeds, but there are also debates around issues such as freed-up insurance capital and what governments do with funds released from catastrophe bonds.

On the day that the yield on 10 year US Treasuries dipped below 1% for the first time ever, Chilean power generator Colbún batted away amid market volatility to not only reopen the Latin America new issue market but clinch the lowest coupon on its curve.

Two more bankers are leaving Daiwa Capital Markets Europe’s debt capital markets team, as the bank relocates staff to Frankfurt as part of plans to make sure it can continue to serve EU clients after Brexit.

Trading levels given are bid-side spreads versus mid-swaps and/or an underlying benchmark and bid-yields from the close of business on Monday, March 2. The source for secondary trading levels is ICE Data Services.

Argentina's economy ministry has appointed two dealer-managers and a financial advisor to manage the restructuring of the country’s $67bn of foreign law sovereign bonds.

China’s importance in global pulp and zinc markets puts pulp producers Suzano and Arauco — alongside Peruvian miner Volcán — among the Latin American corporates most vulnerable to the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak, according to Fitch Ratings.

One of Goldman Sachs's senior European bond syndicate bankers has moved to New York, to an origination role.

Activist investor Edward Bramson has called on Barclays not to renew chief executive Jes Staley’s contract over his links with dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He also questions the bank’s corporate broking relationship with JP Morgan.