Americas

Bankers in the corporate bond market still have a number of deals on their pads to try to execute ahead of the end of 2018. None was successful this week, but that hasn’t dented their ambition.

Investors in Latin American bonds are giving thanks this week, as Wednesday brought some small respite on Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s US holiday. Some of the region’s more battered paper rallied slightly — though the consensus is still that issuance is finished for the year.

TrueEX, the New York-based electronic trading platform provider, will carry on its legal fight against 11 dealers after a US district court ruled against the banks' motion to dismiss the suit.

US medical technology company Stryker is still looking to bring its debut euro transaction following its recent roadshow, but is waiting for market conditions to improve before pushing its triple-tranche offering into the market.

Bankers insist that the market, though deserted, is still open for at least a couple more weeks, but with the new issue premiums investors are demanding, it is difficult to persuade issuers to print.

The US Federal Reserve has been raising rates for nearly three years now and was tapering its quantitative easing for two years before that. Meanwhile the European Central Bank was still cutting its rates and only in 2018 did it start tapering its quantitative easing. However, the change in the ECB’s policy may mean we see growth converging rather than diverging and it is something investors are already considering.

Atlantica Yield, the UK-based energy yieldco that was formerly Abengoa Yield, abandoned a $300m eight year high yield bond issue on Tuesday, as yields in the market reached their highest for over two years.

HSBC Canada opened books on Tuesday for its first covered bond and followed in the same three year maturity, and with the same starting spread, as DBS Bank's issue on Monday. But, after several hours, when the spread was fixed at the initial level, lead managers failed to update investors on the order book size, leading some to question how well the deal was going.

Dan Berkovitz, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s newly appointed Democratic commissioner, has selected a new chief of staff and special counsel to assist him.

Société Générale has agreed to pay $1.34bn in fines and an enhanced monitoring programme for violating US sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Myanmar and North Korea, according to notices issued by US agencies on Monday.

Colombian oil company Frontera Energy is increasing the reward bondholders will earn if they give it permission to make more payments to shareholders.

Some Latin American DCM bankers think the year is over for new issuance, and several are indeed wishing it already were. Although much of what put the brakes on in Lat Am this year will continue to affect the market in 2019, bond bankers should find reasons to believe January will be better.