Coronavirus

Kuwait's Equate Petrochemical stuck its head above the parapet this week, holding investor calls for a triple-tranche bond issue.

The UK government’s decision to lock down the country on Monday night has increased talk that companies, retailers in particular, will soon need equity capital market funding. However, with market volatility still high, recapitalisations will have to be small, or they will have to wait.

BBC Commercial Holdings, a commercial subsidiary of the BBC that produces and sells content to other broadcasters across the world, has decided to delay a £170m debt refinancing in the US private placement market, according to market sources, as bankers struggle to cope with price discovery.

Confectionery company Néstle, soft drink maker Coca-Cola European Partners and French pharmaceutical company Sanofi piled into Europe's bond market with new issues on Tuesday, suggesting that borrowers are increasingly eager and quick to react when the market shows any signs of stabilising.

In the absence of primary issuance, the European Central Bank has ramped up its covered bond purchasing in the secondary market. But, since it has yet to speed up buying under its newly set up Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP), there are high hopes that liquidity will soon be restored.

The US Federal Reserve has made it easier for the country's banks to eat into their total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) buffers without facing restrictions on equity and debt distributions.

Cuts made to senior staff in the debt markets are coming home to roost now that the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are coming to bear on loans and private placements. Old hands that navigated the previous crises are in short supply as borrowers and investors look to implement deal amendments to cope with a coming recession.

The Financial Conduct Authority, the City regulator, has said it will not introduce a short selling ban, since there was no proof that short selling was responsible for the recent market falls.

The combined capital markets funding of German states in 2020 will substantially rise and could return to the levels seen at the height of the global financial and eurozone sovereign debt crises, according to a global head of debt origination.

Indian banks and corporations hoping to fund in the offshore loan market were already facing difficult questions, following a wide-ranging clean-up of the country’s financial system. They are now facing a worse problem: the spread of Covid-19.

Ecuador will make a $325m bond maturity payment on Tuesday as it looks to unlock $2bn of further funding that the finance minister will be “immediately” accessible. But the sovereign will delay $245m in coupon payments later this week, and the minister did not confirm that these payments would be made when the new loans arrive.

South Korea's Shinhan Bank is hoping to sell a public dollar bond in April, following a virus-linked $50m private placement this month.