Americas

Bayer and Monsanto are circling each other as they both seek acceptable terms for a merger that would create a world leader in crop science. For the equity capital markets, the deal holds out the possibility of one of the world’s largest ever rights issues.

Additional tier one paper took centre stage in the FIG market this week, with risk appetite firmly back on and new supply set to ramp up in the coming sessions.

Brent and WTI oil futures have risen to above $50 for the first time since November and July respectively, amid bullish short term positioning by aggressive managers and supportive supply data this week. But while traders called this a ‘psychological’ level for the commodity, physical markets are still sounding a note of caution.

The US has finally engaged with the internationalisation of the renminbi after years of stubbornly ignoring the currency’s rise. Market participants have welcomed the Rmb617m ($94.15m) worth of instruments issued by the New York branches of Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), but say the developments are long overdue. Rev Hui reports.

Credit Suisse has promoted its head of US leveraged finance capital markets to vice chairman of acquisition and leveraged finance capital markets, which is a recently created role.

Meatpacker Marfrig increased the size of the its new seven year non-call three bond from $500m to $750m to send a message that, in the case of certain issuers at least, Brazil is back.

The Argentine province that analysts consider to be the strongest of those left to issue this year will meet bond investors next week ahead of a potential $1bn bond.

Rentenbank joined the rush for dollars on Wednesday as Inter-American Development Bank and British Columbia set pricing on deals announced the previous day.

US banks face tighter but potentially confusing restrictions on booking swaps business overseas, say lawyers, after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) adopted a rule that applies multi-faceted criteria to applying cross-border margining requirements on uncleared swaps.

Derivatives traders this week took the resignation of Brazilian planning minister Romero Juca in their stride, leaving key measures of risk largely unchanged.

Intercontinental Exchange has promoted a long-serving senior official at the firm to chief technology officer.

The City of Buenos Aires lived up to its reputation as the best sub-sovereign credit in Argentina after pricing a new bond just 50bp over where leads believed the sovereign would have sold a new 10 year.