United States

Investors gobbled up a high yield bond offering by US plastic packaging company Berry on Thursday, encouraging the company to increase the size twice, eventually reaching over €1bn. Berry is the only speculative grade company to issue a major bond this week in Europe, as most issuers stayed away from a market anxious about the UK general election.

OneConnect Financial Technology Co, a unit of Chinese conglomerate Ping An Group, reduced the size and price range of its New York Stock Exchange listing on Wednesday, a day before it was to be priced.

Equity markets, particularly European ones, are largely focusing on the UK election as the last opportunity for pre-Christmas volatility. But investors should remember that other shocks remain possible, including the scheduled imposition of US trade tariffs on China on Sunday.

Another packaging company is hunting for better financing terms in the issuer-friendly European high yield bond market. Berry Global follows companies such as Crown, Ball, Smurfit Kappa, Owen-Illinois and Ardagh with an ambitious refinancing that could be priced as early as Thursday — the day of the UK general election.

European equity capital markets bankers are seeing a pick-up in appetite from US-domiciled funds looking across the Atlantic for outperformance.

In this round-up, Chinese exports shrank in November while imports rose unexpectedly, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) will lift foreign ownership caps on life insurance companies to 51%, and the Mainland will waive import tariffs on US soybeans and pork.

GDS Holdings raised $250m from a follow-on offering of new shares on Thursday, according to a term sheet seen by GlobalCapital Asia.

In this round-up, conflicting trade war headlines confuse the market, Huawei sues the Federal Communication Commission amid public relations troubles at home and the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) signs a three year bilateral currency swap agreement with the Monetary Authority of Macao.

The US high-grade market corporate bond market shrugged off volatility this week, as borrowers dashed to print trades in the last full week for supply before the year’s end.

Houlihan Lokey’s European corporate finance land grab has made its fifth acquisition since 2014, writes David Rothnie, at a time when the fluctuations of the credit cycle may be about to lead to more restructurings.

US private placement investors, who have long held firm on covenant structures, have started to notice early signs that their ranks may be breaking, and that 2020 may be a year when weaker covenant packages become more commonplace. But arrangers have resolutely dismissed this claim.

Equity investors are taking on more risk as 2019 draws to a close but a short sharp spike in volatility that began at the end of last week is giving them cause for concern.