North America

Friday marks one year since the launch of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure’s final guidelines — a blueprint for companies to report to investors how they are facing up to climate change.

Europe’s equity-linked bond market has been anaemic this year, in both performance and volume of issuance. Yet in the US, tax reforms, rising interest rates and share prices near record highs have created a booming market for convertible bonds which shows little sign of abating, writes Aidan Gregory.

No financial issuers came forward as they waited for the US Federal Reserve to publish the results of its Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) this week.

The US dollar bond market ended a record-breaking month on a downbeat note as borrowers stayed on the sidelines amid a poor technical backdrop. Charter Communications became the first SEC registered issuer of the week on Thursday with a long five year trade and the only two other benchmark trades were from 144A issuers on Tuesday.

As the first half of 2018 draws to a close, it is clear Europe’s equity capital markets have been battered by political tensions and fears of disruption to international trade. Volume is down, particularly in block trades.

A green bond and a conventional bond both hit the euro market on Wednesday. While neither aimed for size, the pricing action showed much hotter demand for the green offering.

Covered bond issuers are monitoring the dollar market with recent deals from DNB Boligkreditt and CIBC suggesting a welcome reception for further issuance. However, Canadian banks, perhaps the most likely dollar issuers, could well be enticed to consider their home market following TD’s recent success.

London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has acquired roughly 16% of collateral manager AcadiaSoft in an attempt to improve its offering in the non-cleared derivatives margin and processing business.

Nasdaq-listed Momo this week bagged $650m from its first convertible bond, shrugging off a volatile market to close the deal multiple times covered.

Two euro borrowers launched benchmarks on Wednesday, sharing the SSA euro market. While both secured successful deals, one found the market tougher going, as investors pushed back.

Bway, the US container maker, is including €475m of euro bonds in the leveraged financing for its $1bn acquisition of rival Industrial Container Services, in a sign of the increasing attractiveness of euro high yield markets.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group on Tuesday announced that it would soon list new options on its financially settled Black Sea Wheat and Corn futures.