Goldman Sachs

Chinese property developer Times China Holdings used support from reverse enquiry to seal a quick $200m bond on Monday morning that has raised questions about the unusual execution style.

Bpifrance became the first French issuer to sell a Covid-19 response bond on Friday, raising €1.5bn.

April is set to be the second busiest month ever in the US corporate bond market (after March), as companies pile up funding to build up their financial resilience to Covid-19, despite continuing volatility and waves of bad news.

Bpifrance is preparing to issue a bond which will be used to provide loans to companies in France to help them overcome the economic difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic.

Hansoh Pharmaceutical Group, a China-based drug maker, pocketed HK$3.49bn ($450m) from a larger-than-planned issue of primary shares this week.

Europe’s high grade corporate bond market faced one of its biggest tests on Wednesday, with France’s Auchan, which operates in the heavily disrupted retail sector, getting a deal away with one of the larger new issue concessions seen in recent weeks.

Italian-American car company Fiat Chrysler has drawn down on its €6.25bn revolving credit facility to shore up its finances during the Covid-19 pandemic, though the company has left a new bridge loan untouched.

Financial institutions with funding needs that are holding off in anticipation of better issuance conditions are doing it wrong. Waiting until the other side of earnings season to bring deals will likely prove a mistake.

Lenovo Group took a cautious approach to its $650m bond issuance last Friday, opting for size instead of price and offering investors a hefty premium for its deal.

The euro high grade corporate bond market was noticeably calmer this week, but deals for issuers as diverse as Telstra, American Honda, La Poste and Givaudan saw chunky books and shrinking new issue premiums.

US banks this week reported stellar returns from trading and underwriting in the first quarter, even as the bottom line was hit by gigantic writedowns and reserves for credit losses, as the economic and financial disruption from the coronavirus crisis took its toll.

Informa, the UK publishing and events company, has taken the decision to suspend its dividend and raise £1bn of fresh equity after the Covid-19 pandemic caused hundreds of its conferences to be postponed.