North America

Investors gobbled up a high yield bond offering by US plastic packaging company Berry on Thursday, encouraging the company to increase the size twice, eventually reaching over €1bn. Berry is the only speculative grade company to issue a major bond this week in Europe, as most issuers stayed away from a market anxious about the UK general election.

OneConnect Financial Technology Co, a unit of Chinese conglomerate Ping An Group, reduced the size and price range of its New York Stock Exchange listing on Wednesday, a day before it was to be priced.

Mexican chemicals company Cydsa is likely to tap bond markets on Thursday as smaller LatAm issuers continue to raise funding ahead of what is likely to be a busy January.

Indian Oil Corp’s Canadian subsidiary, IndOil Montney, has returned to the loan market for a C$580m ($438m) five year deal. Unlike the last time, when it was primarily focusing on US and Canadian banks, the latest deal is targeting Asian liquidity.

Equity markets, particularly European ones, are largely focusing on the UK election as the last opportunity for pre-Christmas volatility. But investors should remember that other shocks remain possible, including the scheduled imposition of US trade tariffs on China on Sunday.

Three Chinese banks have provided Jiangxi Copper Company with a $700m loan to support its acquisition of Canada’s First Quantum Minerals (FQM).

Another packaging company is hunting for better financing terms in the issuer-friendly European high yield bond market. Berry Global follows companies such as Crown, Ball, Smurfit Kappa, Owen-Illinois and Ardagh with an ambitious refinancing that could be priced as early as Thursday — the day of the UK general election.

European equity capital markets bankers are seeing a pick-up in appetite from US-domiciled funds looking across the Atlantic for outperformance.

In this round-up, Chinese exports shrank in November while imports rose unexpectedly, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) will lift foreign ownership caps on life insurance companies to 51%, and the Mainland will waive import tariffs on US soybeans and pork.

GDS Holdings raised $250m from a follow-on offering of new shares on Thursday, according to a term sheet seen by GlobalCapital Asia.

In this round-up, conflicting trade war headlines confuse the market, Huawei sues the Federal Communication Commission amid public relations troubles at home and the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) signs a three year bilateral currency swap agreement with the Monetary Authority of Macao.

Mexican chemicals company Cydsa has scheduled a roadshow as it looks to reopen a bond that investors say suffers an illiquidity premium. The expected increase in debt has led S&P to assign a negative outlook to the company’s rating.