Bank of America

Flex, the US-Singapore electronic component maker, has signed a $2bn revolving credit facility, in what leads are describing as the first ESG-linked syndicated revolving credit facility for the US technology sector.

Europe’s corporate bond investors had the chance to pick up some paper from the hairier end of their credit spectrum as this week began, with Portuguese power company Energias de Portugal and Swedish housing firm Heimstaden Bostad out with hybrid capital issues.

Chinese video-sharing platform Kuaishou Technology, a rival to TikTok parent ByteDance, has started testing investor appetite for Hong Kong's largest IPO in over two years as it seeks HK$42bn ($5.42bn).

Companies in the same sector often copy each other, but this year's string of bond issues by aircraft lessors has been exceptional, and is prompted by the sector's credit rehabilitation. Air Lease Corp took the recovery past a new milestone this week.

Top US bankers are optimistic about their investment banking businesses for the start of 2021, after a stellar 2020 during which their clients rushed to financing markets to help them get through the Covid-19 crisis, and government and central banks provided essential support.

Apollo Hospitals Enterprise has raised around Rp11.7bn ($160m) from a qualified institutional placement, drawing a swell of demand that pushed pricing above the floor.

Kuaishou Technology, a video-sharing and social media platform, has begun drumming up interest among investors for a multi-billion-dollar Hong Kong IPO.

PTT Oil and Retail Business has set the price guidance for its long-awaited IPO. It is aiming to raise up to Bt46.98bn ($1.57bn) from the country’s largest listing in a year.

The dollar corporate bond market has a more subdued feel this week, after its stellar start to the year, as US issuers are moving into earnings blackouts. But even as politics took centre stage as Congress moved to impeach President Donald Trump for the second time, ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, corporate borrowers quietly churned out deals.

Aroundtown, the Frankfurt-listed property company, opened 2021’s corporate hybrid capital issuance on Monday. More subordinated deals are already being lined up.

The dollar bond market made a fast start to the year this week, as investors showered Broadcom, the semiconductor maker, with $28bn of orders, enabling it to raise $10bn.

Emerging market bond trading desks were quiet on Monday, as the last business week of the year began with the world reacting to the rapid spread of a new strain of the Sars-Cov-2 virus in the UK. But market participants expect that EM assets cannot remain immune.