Americas

KfW made a strong return to the Canadian dollar market on Thursday after 3.5 years away from the currency, as it tightened pricing on its comeback deal. The German agency came alongside a green bond in the currency from a Canadian province.

The International Monetary Fund and Ecuador confirmed this week that they were discussing a potential financial arrangement, and the positive reaction in the sovereign’s curve could have further to run.

Guarantor: Canada

Wells Fargo Asset Management has picked Hannah Skeates to lead its global environmental, social and governance strategy.

KfW and Québec will bring Canadian dollar bonds to the market on Thursday, with the former looking to issue in the currency for the first time since 2015.

A pair of triple-A SSA borrowers built heavily oversubscribed books — and one printed its largest ever deal — on Wednesday in a dollar market that is still attracting heavy demand and performing in secondary despite already tight levels.

Though a paucity of direct comparable bonds made it difficult to precisely judge the pricing on BTG Pactual’s tier two deal on Tuesday, DCM bankers said that the Brazilian lender had shown investors were willing to bet on high yield paper but keep discipline on price.

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.