Americas

International law firm Dorsey & Whitney has added four new people to its US-China team in a bid to take advantage of continuous flow of business between the two countries.

Bond market analysts say that the external financing required by Ecuador’s budget for 2019 will be a tough ask given existing market conditions, as the sovereign’s bonds slump amid a fall in oil prices.

South American development bank Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF) is due to price to a first public dollar deal in a year on Thursday, having set price talk on Wednesday.

MetLife, the US insurance company, has made an unusual investment as part of its impact investment portfolio, which has about $200m of assets. It is providing a revolving credit facility to an impact investment fund, to enable it to cope more easily with redemptions.

The number of indices that give exposure to environmental, social and governance (ESG) causes has grown by 60% in the last year, according to a survey conducted by trade body, the Index Industry Association (IIA).

The US Federal Home Loan Banks system has become the latest borrower to print bonds linked to Sofr, the planned replacement benchmark for dollar Libor.

HSBC Canada has mandated joint leads for its first covered bond and held investor meetings on Tuesday. The moves comes after a succession of successful dollar benchmarks from European and Canadian borrowers.

Global equity markets suffered a tough start to the week, which kept the EMEA blocks largely quiet.

Colombo-Canadian oil and gas company Frontera Energy’s attempt to grant itself the power to make larger payments to shareholders is an aggressive move, said bankers as Fitch highlighted it would be a credit negative.

Just over 100 days since Ivan Duque took office as Colombia’s president, the South American country has appointed a new head of public credit and national treasury.

Duke Energy Corp became the latest US utility to issue green bonds last week, when it priced a $1bn dual tranche offering.

Frontera Energy Corporation, the Canada-listed Colombian oil and gas company, is asking bondholders permission to make payments otherwise forbidden by the terms of its outstanding debt.