Citi

The Sultanate of Oman is tapping the loan market for $500m, its first loan in eight years, as the formerly cash-rich country faces a fiscal deficit.

Thursday may be bonfire night in the UK but all the fireworks in the loan market were taking place in the Middle East this week, as Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) launched a $800m loan alongside three other banks and with a loan for Oman also in the pipeline.

African private equity is feeling the effects of the wider capital flight from emerging markets and the downturn in commodity prices, but market participants say there are still fruitful investments to be made.

Nineteen eurozone countries with as many legal systems, 23 officially recognised languages, 3,500 banks and just one supervisor. Sceptics say the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) has an impossible task. In the first year alone, it has achieved an enormous amount, but the hard work may be just beginning, writes Virginia Furness.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China New York opened bookbuilding for a dual-tranche senior dollar bond on Thursday, while Future Land Development Holdings has started wooing high yield investors with a new two year offering.

Latin America bankers say that a Mexican corporate is likely to announce a roadshow on Thursday after Fibra Terrafina’s debut deal traded well in secondary despite only a modest oversubscription.

Kuwait petrochemicals firm Equate is due to close a $6bn one year loan by early December that will include an Islamic financing component.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan printed its first non-US guaranteed standalone deal from the country for five years on Tuesday, and at a tight price.

Multilateral development bank Gulf Investment Corp (GIC) has yet to open books on a dollar bond after finishing a roadshow on Monday. But the delay was not a sign of wider Middle East uncertainty, said the leads on the trade.

Two CEEMEA sovereigns jumped into the bond market this week with breakthrough trades and three other issuers have mandated, lining November up to be one of the busiest months of the year for this market.

ICBCIL Finance has made its debut in the 144A format with a triple-tranche dollar offering, meeting its objectives on both pricing and diversification.

Snam, the Italian natural gas transmission company, priced a €750m eight year bond on Tuesday, its first issue since it was added to the list of bonds that the European Central Bank will buy as part of its public sector bond purchase programme, or quantitative easing.