Bank of America

World Bank raised $4.5bn of five year bonds on Tuesday with its first dollar benchmark of the year. Municipality Finance (MuniFin) joined it at the tenor a day later, but this is widely expected to be SSA issuers’ last hurrah in the currency for a few weeks.

India’s equity capital market is on edge as Embassy Office Parks Real Estate Investment Trust prepares the country’s first Reit IPO. But while the hotly-anticipated listing has global institutional investors chomping at the bit, the deal may be a one-off treat as the issuer has very few peers.

Hong Kong’s securities regulator has fined Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered and UBS after investigations into the banks’ sponsorship of a series of IPOs. The Swiss bank has also had its sponsor licence revoked for a year. Jonathan Breen reports.

Bank of America has appointed two co-heads of UK investment banking.

The extraordinary conditions in Europe’s investment grade corporate bond market, in which three issuers in succession had printed multi-tranche bonds this week with no new issue premiums, produced a new bizarre result on Wednesday when Sanofi, one of the market’s tightest-trading issuers, took its turn.

Municipality Finance (Muni Fin) printed a $1bn no-grow short five year bond on Wednesday, joining World Bank at the tenor in a dollar market that bankers said has offered something for everyone this week.

China’s Frontage Holdings Corp, which provides support to pharmaceutical companies, has refiled a draft IPO prospectus with Hong Kong’s stock exchange.

Garanti Bank, Turk Eximbank and Ziraat Bank have begun refinancing one year loans, according to two loans bankers. Pricing is said to be in line with Akbank, which launched a refinancing in early February.

A unit of insurer Standard Life is looking to bag at least Rp25bn ($359.8m) by trimming its stake in HDFC Life Insurance Co.

Embassy Office Parks Real Estate Investment Trust (Reit) has global long-only investors on tenterhooks as it prepares to launch its smaller-than-expected Rp47.5bn ($683m) IPO, having filed the final terms for India’s first Reit listing.

Pepsico took one of its rare sips at the euro bond market on Monday, and was rewarded with two bonds, seen as priced flat to and through its curve. After the European corporate bond market was clouded by weak secondary trading last week, it was back on form on Monday.

Whether Vodafone’s £3.44bn issue of two and three year mandatorily convertible bonds on Tuesday this week ends up being judged a corporate finance success for the company may take time to discover. But it is already clear it was a great hit with investors — much more so than the first time Vodafone issued the structure in 2016.