North America

After selling €4.6bn of loans in March, Unilever Spreads unveiled the €1bn high yield bond portion of its leveraged buyout funding package on Wednesday. But as well as jumbo deals, other borrowers with smaller offerings are also vying for investor attention.

One of the drawbacks of the strong growth in interest in responsible investing is that many investors only want to take conventional kinds of risk — such as buying large, liquid equities or investment grade bonds. But a report out this week suggests even small, obscure impact investments have a safe risk profile — perhaps even better than mainstream investments.

Swiss seed company Syngenta enjoyed a bumper order book as it printed a $4.75bn bond six months after abandoning its first attempt.

The European Central Bank’s Ad Visser acknowledged its "flexible" approach to covered bond purchases at the European Covered Bond Council’s plenary meeting held in Vancouver on Wednesday. His remark was made in response to a question about whether the ECB was reducing its primary market orders by 10% to a maximum of 30% of a deal’s size.

Allen & Overy, IHS Markit and Smart Communications subsidiary SmartDX on Thursday announced that they had launched a platform to speed up the repapering of derivatives contracts, in anticipation of new regulatory requirements.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has proposed new powers that could allow it to control elements of foreign clearing houses’ operations (CCPs) in “exceptional” crisis situations, according to a leaked position paper. This is likely to escalate already tense relations with US regulators.

Intercontinental Exchange on Wednesday announced that it would be launching its three month futures on regulators’ chosen successor for Libor, the sterling overnight index average, on June 1.

Canadian covered bonds are set to become even more attractive under the country’s newly published bail-in regulations, delegates heard at the European Covered Bond Council’s 27th plenary session held in Vancouver on Wednesday. If immigration policy remains unchanged, there will be limited scope for a correction in Canadian house prices.

The Trump administration’s decision not to announce new sanctions against Russia on Monday is unlikely to be the end of the sanctions saga, with designations having been proven to be the US's most effective weapon against Russia.

A swap execution facility (SEF) owned by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) has started trading two new foreign exchange non-deliverable forwards (NDFs), it was revealed on Tuesday.

US President Donald Trump will nominate lawyer Dan Berkovitz to be a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the White House revealed on Monday.

Not a day goes by without some analyst, regulator or senior exchange executive weighing in on where the clearing of euro swaps should reside post-Brexit.