North America

The banking landscape in Spain and the UK is set to change, amid pressure on banks' profitability, after a flurry of announcements this week.

Mexican power generator FEL Energy, which sells 70% of its capacity to state-owned electric utility CFE, priced a debut bond deal on Wednesday as investors were unshaken by noise surrounding a different Mexican credit with a long-term agreement with a government-owned entity.

NRG Energy has priced a roughly $3.8bn five tranche bond offering — including the first ever sustainabilty-linked notes from a US issuer — to finance its acquisition of North American energy retailer Direct Energy.

Deutsche Börse has beefed up its offering in sustainable finance and corporate governance services through purchasing a majority stake in ISS, the ESG data and analytics provider.

Mexico will hold a virtual non-deal roadshow with Japanese investors next week, according to Gabriel Yorio, Mexico’s deputy finance minister.

As investors sought gold and silver as a hedge against inflation and uncertainty, investment banks with the capabilities to act in these markets benefitted. Some made more than $100m in precious metals in the third quarter, according to Coalition Greenwich.

Gregg Lemkau is leaving Goldman Sachs at the end of the year and will head up an alternative investment firm linked to tech entrepreneur Michael Dell. Jim Esposito will take over as joint head of the investment banking division at Goldman.

The Financial Stability Board has said that it will look at policies to address systemic risk when it comes to financial intermediation involving non-banks, as it seeks to learn lessons from the market meltdown at the cusp of the coronavirus crisis in March.

Chinese housing-related platform operator Ke Holdings, which listed in August in New York, is back again to the equity market. It is looking to raise around $2.6bn from a follow-on offering.

Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo has kicked off a multi-billion-dollar equity fundraising exercise, taking advantage of a sharp rally in its share price this year to aim for as much as $4.85bn.

Latin America DCM bankers’ promises that a sovereign would jump on recent market positivity materialised on Monday as Mexico turned to international bond funding for the fifth time this year with a heavily oversubscribed liability management exercise that totalled $6.625bn, once switch-tenders were included.

Chinese beauty company Yatsen Holding has set its New York Stock Exchange IPO in motion, kicking off bookbuilding for a $616.9m listing.