United States

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has ramped up its Brexit preparations by establishing a new EU broker dealer and appointing Sanaz Zaimi as its CEO.

Bank of Nova Scotia this week became the third Canadian bank to have hit the dollar market with a debut bail-in bond, as spreads continued to rally.

Just six months after listing on the Nasdaq, Chinese start-up Pinduoduo is back in the equity market to raise around $1bn from a follow-on offering.

High yield bonds for auto parts manufacturer Adient slipped more than three points on Thursday as the company tweaked its loan covenants and produced disappointing numbers. The firm’s new management is taking aggressive action to turn the group around and says it needs the financial headroom to do so.

The dollar issuance calendar continued to smoulder with a handful of borrowers enjoying bulging order books and pricing leverage as investors continued to return in force to high-grade credit. With corporate earnings still acting as a handbrake and the Chinese New Year further dampening activity, supply was steady rather than spectacular.

Goldman Sachs has held off from rewarding some retired executives compensation until “more information is available” on the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal.

Pacific Gas & Electric has gone bankrupt with $52bn of debt, blaming forest fires that seared California during 2018. Vale, with $11bn, has been downgraded to the bottom edge of investment grade after its horrific dam burst last Friday.

While banks fight shy of big-ticket mergers, a select group of private equity firms are leading the restructuring of the industry in Europe, writes David Rothnie.

Harley Davidson made heavy weather of strong US bond market conditions on Thursday after a dovish Fed and a month-long rally in spreads appeared to set the dollar market up for a strong run of issuance in February.

Chinese electric car company Nio made a splash in the US convertible bond market this week, raising $650m from its debut issuance and using a call spread feature to engineer a tasty premium. Jonathan Breen reports.

Investors have come out in huge numbers to buy the three corporate hybrid deals that have been sold so far in 2019. However, the excess demand is unlikely to be sated as the year unfolds.

S&P Global Ratings, which this week became the first international rating agency permitted to rate Chinese domestic deals, plans to start its business gradually. The firm will initially concentrate on renminbi deals sold by its existing clients.