Bank of America

Two Qatari banks raised new debt in different formats on Thursday, proving that Qatari banks have a multitude of funding options available to them.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has hired two senior bankers from UBS, including its former head of EMEA M&A Séverin Brizay.

Analysts have reacted with surprise but not frustration after Vodafone’s chief executive officer Vittorio Colao announced he was stepping down on Tuesday. New boss Nick Read looks likely to have a tricky task ahead of him to retain the company’s credit rating amid its €18.4bn debt-financed acquisition.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch dropped its issuance forecast for this year by $20bn on Monday, in the middle of what is usually the busiest month in the primary market calendar for US high yield bonds.

Two A-rated corporates went head to head in the euro corporate bond market on Monday as UK pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and US electrical systems manufacturer United Technologies Corp both launched triple-tranche deals, with two matching maturities, which totalled €4.5bn.

Israel Chemicals, a leading global specialty minerals and chemicals company, has named leads for a rare long dollar deal, combined with a tender offer.

The Republic of Ghana raised $2bn with a dual tranche 10 and 30 year bond issue on Thursday, timing the deal well as emerging market assets rallied after several days of weakness.

GlaxoSmithKline added to the crush of red hot dollar bond supply this week, as borrowers began a spring stampede to lock in funding ahead of a likely rate rise next month.

The Republic of Ghana was set to price its dollar dual tranche bond as GlobalCapital went to press on Thursday evening, having picked a phenomenal day for a deal, with the bonds of several African sovereigns bouncing two points.

The Republic of Ghana is taking advantage of a more stable day in emerging market currency trading to print its bond, though the country’s outstanding paper has widened during the roadshow.

ReNew Power, a poster boy of India’s clean energy firms, is looking to raise as much as $1.4bn through an IPO as it revives public share sales in the sector.

A pair of Singapore Reits came to the equity market this week to raise funds for acquisitions, pocketing S$779.1m ($581.0m) between them.