Americas

After lending Venezuela more than $65bn over the last eight years, China will soon have to decide whether to go double and keeping on lending, or go quits and let the beleaguered Latin American economy default

While the World Bank and IDB lent a combined $23bn to Latin America last year, Chinese development banks weighed in with nearly $30bn. They are the region’s new strong men and the US establishment is concerned

Lat Am syndicate bankers said on Thursday that the market remained in wait-and-see mode ahead of Argentina’s imminent jumbo bond return as another week passed without issuance.

Yankee banks took full advantage of strong funding conditions and the undivided attention of investors to print a volley of senior paper this week, as Wall Street’s heavyweights skulked in earnings blackout.

German carmaker BMW drove primary market activity this week, making a stunning debut as corporate America entered an earnings blackout.

Four banks have teamed up with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, Markit, and Axoni, a distributed ledger technology firm, to undertake the market’s first test of a blockchain solution for managing single name credit default swap post-trade events.

US cash machine maker Diebold, which is acquiring German peer Wincor Nixdorf, has increased the size of its euro and dollar loans and tightened their spreads, amid an improving investor mood in the leveraged loan market.

Eco World International has obtained approval from the Securities Commission Malaysia for its IPO, which is expected to raise $500m by the middle of this year.

Credit Suisse has named former Macquarie banker Cheun Hon Ho as its new southeast Asia ECM head.

Market participants and their lawyers were this week studying the US Department of Labor’s lengthy new fiduciary rules for retirement accounts, as the industry worries about a big shift in the way it can offer financial products to the country’s savers. One derivatives-related area on which officials appear to have taken advice is their previous plan to limit the ability of investors to hold listed options.

Market participants and their lawyers were still poring over the US Department of Labor’s mammoth ream of fiduciary rules on Wednesday evening following its publication that day, but one derivatives-related area on which officials appear to have taken advice is their previous plan to limit the ability of investors to hold listed options in their retirement accounts.

For all of the concern surrounding China’s economy, Latin America’s precious new flow of funding is unlikely to dry up any time soon