Americas

Latin American DCM bankers say that continued debt buy-backs by Brazilian companies are creating strong technicals that should put the market in good stead for next year.

South American development bank Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF) sold its first public dollar deal in a year on Thursday, raising $750m despite tough market conditions.

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.

A slide in the price of oil has put pressure on energy-related bonds in the US high yield market, which contains a large proportion of energy issuers.

The first US Access to Nutrition Index has been published for investors, aiming to guide them on which big food companies are doing better and worse at feeding the American public healthily.

Recent deterioration in credit quality, deal terms and potential recovery rates may be storing up trouble in the leveraged loan market but market sources in Europe fear that many of their peers are taking on these risks with no heed to their future impact.

The dollar bond market was brought to a standstill on Thursday, capping a tough week that saw around 15 borrowers abandon funding plans due to volatility.

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).