United States

Financial institutions have accessed the dollar market with ease this week, but Yankee bank supply has nonetheless remained subdued.

The dollar new issuance market enjoyed a hot streak this week, as a series of blue-chip names took advantage of tightening spreads to cram supply into a holiday-shortened week.

In this round-up, trade talks between China and the US will continue in Washington DC after no deal was reached last week in Beijing, total credit growth came above market consensus and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China received a green light to set up a wealth management subsidiary.

In this round up, US president Donald Trump hinted at a potential delay of the March 1 deadline for a trade deal with China, the National Development and Reform Commission required its local units to zoom in on the potential for bond defaults and Bank of China (BOC) said it will lend Rmb300b to the Tianjin government.

Credit Suisse’s fourth quarter results showed damage from the high yield and leveraged finance market’s tantrum in the last quarter of 2018. The bank was also hit by a Canada Goose block trade gone wrong.

The US corporate new issuance calendar took a breather on Thursday after clocking up its busiest week of the year with $30bn of supply in just three days. Borrowers remained on the sidelines as investors digested the supply onslaught that brought bulging order books and tight pricing.

UBS is re-balancing its corporate finance business to end its reliance on its Financial Institutions Group with impressive results, writes David Rothnie.

Wells Fargo Asset Management has picked Hannah Skeates to lead its global environmental, social and governance strategy.

Representatives from the Loan Syndication and Trading Association (LSTA) and the CLO manager community returned from Japan this week following meetings with the Japanese Financial Services Agency, where they made a case for exempting broadly syndicated loan (BSL) CLOs from proposed risk retention rules.

US tobacco group Altria on Monday ended a blackout-blighted slow start to February for the euro corporate bond market when it brought a new deal that included four benchmark tranches. This came the day before the company sold $11.5bn in its home market.

In this round-up, China and the US will talk in Beijing at the end of the week, China’s interbank payment and settlement system survived the Lunar New Year red packet frenzy and a draft of the foreign investment law will be submitted in early March.

Pinduoduo, a Nasdaq-listed Chinese e-commerce company, has raised $1.38bn from a follow-on offering.