Pre-migration untagged articles

There was a host of single name stories in the default market this week, but few enjoyed much in the way of follow-through trading — as has been the case for much of this year.

Digicel Group, the majority owner of burgeoning Caribbean telecom company Digicel Ltd, is set to break the record for the biggest high yield bond from the central and Latin American region next week, when it hits the US with a two part $1.4bn deal.

If a bond or loan defaults, how much redress do the investors have against the bank that sold them the instrument? Not much, one might think. But what if the investment bank had doubts about the reliability of the financial data in the offering memorandum before the deal was closed ¡ª yet didn¡¯t tell the investor? That is what Goldman Sachs did in a mezzanine deal in 2000, leading to a court case that concluded in London in December. Goldman won the case, because the court upheld disclaimers in the deal documents that protected the arranger. Andrew Howell and Ivan Wilkinson of UK-based law firm Barlow Lyde & Gilbert explain the court¡¯s reasoning and the implications for financial markets.

At Lazards, they seem to be not only working very late into the night, but there are rumours that young associates are told not to make too many firm plans for Sundays.

US dollar swap spreads narrowed from the wide prints seen at the beginning of the week over the last two sessions as the market rallied.

Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa's chest-beating threats not to pay the country's foreign debt fizzled out this week when the sovereign decided at the last minute yesterday (Thursday) to meet a $135m coupon payment on its 2030 global bond.

Spreads on the London Stock Exchange's outstanding bonds widened this week after Moody's cut its senior debt rating to Baa2, two notches above junk.

Yet again this week, the meagre pickings offered by corporate issuers failed to satisfy investors' appetite for credit.