North America

The Province of Manitoba rounded off a week of record breaking deals with a dollar trade that matched its largest ever benchmark in the currency and helped it diversify away from its North American investor base.

China Rapid Finance decided to cut price guidance for its US IPO in order to secure a high quality anchor investor, raising $70m instead of the original target of up to $115m, according to a banker on the deal.

Elation in the euro markets after the first round of the French presidential election at the weekend continues to wash over the public sector bond markets, with the Province of Quebec selling its largest ever benchmark in the currency and Spain printing €5bn of inflation-linked paper.

Peer-to-peer lender China Rapid Finance is eyeing the bottom half of guidance for its US IPO, giving it a possible size of up to $105m, according to a banker working on the deal.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has named four new members to its board of directors.

The European Financial Stability Facility on Tuesday priced a dual tranche deal that bankers are describing as possibly its greatest ever, laying to rest some of its other long dated trades this year that drew criticism. A pair of other issuers have also hit screens in a euro market enjoying what one syndicate head called “probably the best conditions we’ve seen in months”.

Netflix is issuing its first bond in euros. It's a high yield bond, but not as we know it. It is single-B rated but the covenants are investment grade — though Netflix's leverage is racy. To buy it, you need to be a fan.

Politicians and regulators might say they want a safer financial system, but they want their banks globally competitive. There’s no better way to ease regulations than to play on these fears — but they’re not always grounded in fact.

Morgan Stanley was able to complete a huge €3.5bn offering of senior notes on Monday, adding to a recent €22.5bn debt binge from US banks following first quarter results.

The first German building society is poised to enter the Pfandbrief business, two Canadian banks have substantially increased the size of their covered bond programmes and prospective downgrades of NordLB’s covered bonds may not necessarily lead to a spread widening said analysts at Commerzbank, UniCredit and Citi this week.

Strong volumes at the start of the year and an easy comparison quarter have meant the US banks have posted stonking sets of investment banking numbers in their first quarter reporting. Goldman’s trading numbers may have disappointed, but broader business is booming on Wall Street.

Lowe’s Companies was the sole benchmark issuer to tap the dollar market as bankers raised concerns about the strength of the forward supply calendar despite record inflows into US high grade corporate bonds.