Americas

Representatives from the Loan Syndication and Trading Association (LSTA) and the CLO manager community returned from Japan this week following meetings with the Japanese Financial Services Agency, where they made a case for exempting broadly syndicated loan (BSL) CLOs from proposed risk retention rules.

A strong start to the year for public sector dollar issuance is keeping up the pace so far this week, with last week’s slowdown during the Chinese New Year holidays only appearing to make investors hungrier. Both of Tuesday’s dollar deals were well oversubscribed — one spectacularly so — and there is a full card of issuers waiting to come on Wednesday.

Brazilian bank BTG Pactual will look to price a 10 year non-call five subordinated tier two note on Tuesday after wrapping up investor meetings in Asia on Monday.

Bolivia-headquartered multilateral lender Fonplata sold its first ever bond on Monday, raising Sfr150m ($150m) of five year money from Swiss investors.

US tobacco group Altria on Monday ended a blackout-blighted slow start to February for the euro corporate bond market when it brought a new deal that included four benchmark tranches. This came the day before the company sold $11.5bn in its home market.

In this round-up, China and the US will talk in Beijing at the end of the week, China’s interbank payment and settlement system survived the Lunar New Year red packet frenzy and a draft of the foreign investment law will be submitted in early March.

Pinduoduo, a Nasdaq-listed Chinese e-commerce company, has raised $1.38bn from a follow-on offering.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has ramped up its Brexit preparations by establishing a new EU broker dealer and appointing Sanaz Zaimi as its CEO.

Bank of Nova Scotia this week became the third Canadian bank to have hit the dollar market with a debut bail-in bond, as spreads continued to rally.

Just six months after listing on the Nasdaq, Chinese start-up Pinduoduo is back in the equity market to raise around $1bn from a follow-on offering.

Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF) laminated its SSA membership card this week as it tightened pricing while equalling its largest ever dollar benchmark for size — despite political turmoil in one of its shareholders.

No candidate from an emerging or developing country has come forward to challenge US politician David Malpass for the presidency of the World Bank Group.