Americas

The super-hot dollar bond market is set to welcome a pair of SSAs on Thursday — including a rare name in the currency — after a mid-week lull in issuance.

Export Development Canada will head out for a roadshow next month for its first benchmark in euros, taking advantage of the attractive market conditions for issuing in the currency for dollar funders. More deals could follow from debut and rare issuers in euros, with several borrowers looking “closely” at the cross-currency basis swap, according to bankers.

If any of Latin America’s larger sovereigns spent the first half of January lingering on the sidelines not wanting to pay up for being the region’s first issuer in 2019, their angst was misplaced.

It will probably be recalled as one of the worst quarters since the financial crisis. But the market's anxieties belie an economy where the indicators still look strong.

Public sector borrowers printed over $10bn of bonds on Tuesday in a dollar market that SSA bankers expect to keep its momentum in the weeks ahead.

Caribbean telecoms group Digicel has finally wrapped up a distressed debt exchange to avoid a potential default next year, after extended negotiations with bondholders. But Fitch warned on Monday that the move has 'undermined' the group’s position with creditors.

Trading platform operator Tradeweb has received regulatory approvals to operate trading venues from Amsterdam as it solidifies its preparations for Brexit.

The US government shutdown hit 24 days on Monday, a record kerfuffle for the country. As primary equity markets teams, most importantly at the Securities and Exchange Commission, run on skeleton crews, the IPO pipeline could come under some threat.

CPPIB Capital was comfortably oversubscribed for its $2bn trade on Monday with the dollar SSA market remaining attractive at the short end. Agence Francaise de Developpement, KfW and Kommuninvest will look to tap into lucrative conditions in the currency after mandating banks for deals on Tuesday.

On Monday, the US deliveries group FedEx returned to the euro corporate bond market for the first time since its debut visit in 2016 when it raised €3bn to finance its purchase of Dutch peer TNT Express. That deal was a four-tranche combination, but its latest deal was just a €500m 3.5 year deal to refinance the shortest tranche of the debut deal.

On Friday, American data centre owner Digital Realty sold the first green corporate bond in euros of 2019, but investors did not have long to wait for the second one as Italian energy company Enel also chose to issue in the format.

European and global equities have shown signs of recovery in 2019, but few are predicting a prolonged rally to entice potential capital market issuers.