Americas

Euro covered bonds issued by ANZ New Zealand, Caffil and National Bank of Canada on Tuesday provided “the least worst option” in a spread widening environment, said bankers.

Credit default swaps (CDS) are a complicated product. But the past year has presented a few examples of market participants resorting to ‘creative’ tactics to optimise payouts. If the market fails to respond to concerns around the viability of CDS, the product may have to be rethought.

Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras began the year finalising yet another buy-back of existing bonds, though the response from bondholders fell below the $1.5bn maximum repurchase amount set by the borrower.

The unexpected decision by Jim Yong Kim to stand down as World Bank president three years ahead of schedule will raise worries in the development community that Donald Trump will use the opportunity to select a political appointee. By Phil Thornton

A funding official at a Canadian public sector borrower is switching to another SSA in the country.

Chris Concannon, Cboe Global Markets' COO and president, will leave the exchange group next week to join electronic trading platform MarketAxess in the same roles.

Brazilian airline Gol Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes is set to continue its deleveraging process as it looks to repurchase the remainder of its bonds due in 2022.

Danske Bank is looking to issue a senior non-preferred bond, giving primary market investors a chance to judge the institution after developments in a money laundering scandal have raised the prospect of it receiving a large fine from US authorities. Danske follows BNP Paribas, which paid up to print a new deal on Thursday.

In this round-up, US and China agreed to hold trade talks in Beijing early next week, the central bank loosened the definition of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (Nafmii) appointed a new party chief.

No Latin American borrowers dared to announce bond plans in the short first working week of 2019, but a flurry of pre-Christmas requests for proposals and the prospect of habitual January issuers tapping was enough to make syndicate bankers chirpier.

El Salvador’s Congress has approved the issuance of new external debt to enable it to refinance debt due later this year. That will mean one fewer headaches for whoever wins next month’s presidential elections.

Companies usually park their reserves of cash in staid, low-yielding liquid assets. But asset managers are trying to persuade them to invest some of that money differently, in a way that could help them live up to their environmental commitments.