North America

Mexico state-owned utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) returned to the Formosa market for the fourth time on Wednesday, clinching its largest trade yet in Taiwan.

One of the derivatives industry’s largest annual conferences was cancelled on Tuesday, after the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus made the event unviable in the view of the organisers.

Equity capital markets bankers were celebrating a rare piece of good macroeconomic news on Wednesday morning: the surprise surge of former US vice-president Joe Biden in his bid to win the Democratic nomination to be presidential candidate in November’s election.

The US Federal Reserve’s emergency 50bp cut in interest rates on Tuesday failed to reassure markets. The US and European response to the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak needs to incorporate targeted fiscal policy as well.

The World Bank and Assicurazioni Generali are each giving the insurance-linked securities (ILS) they issue a sustainability label, as the market attempts to burnish its credentials for investors concerned with environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria. Both issuers are imitating conventional green bond programmes by focusing on direct use of proceeds, but there are also debates around issues such as freed-up insurance capital and what governments do with funds released from catastrophe bonds.

Trading levels given are bid-side spreads versus mid-swaps and/or an underlying benchmark and bid-yields from the close of business on Monday, March 2. The source for secondary trading levels is ICE Data Services.

One of Goldman Sachs's senior European bond syndicate bankers has moved to New York, to an origination role.

Activist investor Edward Bramson has called on Barclays not to renew chief executive Jes Staley’s contract over his links with dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He also questions the bank’s corporate broking relationship with JP Morgan.

A managing director in Barclays' investment grade bond syndicate team in New York is set to leave the bank.

Global equity markets are suffering from their most brutal week in a decade, as fears over the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus infected financial markets. On Friday morning, both banks and investors were struggling to come to terms with the speed and severity of the global sell-off, and casting doubt on this year’s IPO calendar.

Guarantor: CPP Investment Board (CPP Investments)

Concerns over the impact of the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak on the balance sheets of some of the biggest companies in the world led to four straight days of zero supply in the US high grade bond market this week.