Americas

After an absence of more than two years, Royal Bank of Canada this week issued its first covered bond in euros, attracting a comfortably oversubscribed order book for a €1.5bn deal which was priced with a skinny new issue concession.

Clients of bank index platforms are adapting to a new investment climate, increasingly opting for more defensive strategies and specifically positioning for volatility spikes similar to the ones markets experienced in early February.

Fixed income investors should be better prepared for a trade war between the US and China, according to Arvind Rajan, managing director and head of global and macro at PGIM Fixed Income.

Thunder Bridge Acquisition began trading on the Nasdaq this week after sealing a $230m IPO. It is the first special purpose acquisition vehicle (Spac) to focus purely on China’s financial technology sector.

Standard Chartered bank has hired two people to cover macroeconomics in the Americas.

Colombo-Canadian oil and gas company Frontera Energy has returned to primary markets for the first time since it was called Pacific Rubiales with a five year non-call three trade.

Bayer’s €5bn four-tranche corporate bond offering on Tuesday not only cleared the way for other issuers to approach the market, but the €22.5bn of demand gave four issuers the confidence to sell a variety of deals in Europe on Wednesday. €3.5bn was issued in the euro market and £1bn in sterling.

Investment company AllianceBernstein says it is focused on the development of the AT1 market beyond the large European banks, as it launched a new financials fund.

There has been no relief rally in Colombian bonds after right winger Iván Duque eased to victory in Sunday’s presidential elections, as tricky boarder conditions outweigh the positives for the South American country.

BMC Software, the US IT firm, has revealed the loan leg of the funding for its leveraged buyout by KKR, a $4.4bn facility in dollars and euros. It is the first multi-billion leveraged loan deal for four weeks, after a battery of large offerings early in May.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Monday settled with JP Morgan for $65m over charges that its traders had attempted to manipulate the dollar IsdaFix swap rate benchmark between 2007 and 2012.

Brazilian mining giant Vale has launched its third tender offer of the year, this time targeting the longer part of its dollar curve.