UBS

BNP Paribas managed 10.1% increase in profit to €1.8bn for the three months to March despite weaknesses in its investment banking division.

Indonesian power producer Cikarang Listrindo started pre-deal investor education for its $300m-$400m IPO on Thursday and is expected to open books by mid-May.

A flotilla of IPOs reached harbour safely this week, through waters calmed by the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing medicine, and whatever other magical ingredient has made financial professionals feel so much better since Easter. But one debutant tripped up and another IPO was pulled.

JD.com’s inaugural outing in the international bond market could not have veered any further from expectations when the notes tanked in the secondary market. An overzealous pricing strategy was the main culprit for the poor performance, but divisive credit ratings for the Chinese company did not help either. Rev Hui reports.

The recent run of good news on IPOs was broken on Wednesday when Telepizza made a dire debut on Bolsa Madrid after its €550m flotation, priced on Tuesday.

An overzealous pricing strategy and a divisive credit rating meant JD.com’s debut dollar bond offering did not get off to a good start with the notes widening significantly in the secondary market on Monday.

A pair of investment grade issuers, Maybank and JD.com, ventured into the dollar bond market on Friday albeit with quite different trades.

Some 49% of troubled Canadian-Colombian oil company Pacific Exploration & Production’s creditors, comprising bank lenders and senior noteholders, took just two days to agree to a restructuring proposal presented on Monday evening.

Books were several times oversubscribed and new issue premiums often dropped to zero this week, ahead of an ECB move that was widely expected — but everybody is aware that market backlashes do happen.

Covered bond activity slowed this week with only three deals emerging, half the number seen in the prior week, with Canadian issuers at the fore.

France’s largest property firm, Unibail-Rodamco, issued a €1bn dual tranche bond on Wednesday that included only the third 20 year corporate bond in euros this year.

‘Rogue traders’ have struck again — Tijane Thiam, Credit Suisse’s chief executive, doesn’t seem sure quite how his traders ran up such large positions, but they’re being blamed for $750m of losses and writedowns since October 2015. The Swiss bank’s distressed debt desk joins a long line of unauthorised big losers stretching back four decades.