United States

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has fined Bank of America Merrill Lynch $2.5m for failures of supervision and record-keeping, connected with an investigation by CME Group that found evidence of front-running.

Singapore-based internet company Sea has kicked off pre-marketing for a US listing that could raise up to $1bn, according to a banker close to the deal.

The FIG dollar market was subdued this week, with self-funders remaining on the sidelines as the Federal Reserve hinted at higher rates and announced the reversal of its quantitative easing plan.

Chinese online retailer of luxury goods Secoo Holding priced its $110.5m listing of American Depository Shares on Thursday, finding favour among investors thanks to an attractive discount.

Investors bought into attractive yields from triple-B rated issuers that jumped into the US corporate bond market ahead of the Fed’s well flagged announcement that it would reverse quantitative easing.

Chinese logistics firm Best, which counts Alibaba Group Holdings among its shareholders, raised $450m from its US IPO this week, chopping the deal by half to get it over the finish line.

Chinese logistics firm Best raised $450m from its US IPO this week, slicing the deal size by as much as half.

Jefferies' dreary third quarter trading results were buoyed by a record performance in its capital markets division.

Distributed ledger technology “is on the verge of creating a sea change in contract design, reporting and settlement”, Brian Quintenz, a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said this week, as he was named sponsor of its Technology Advisory Committee (TAC).

Geopolitical tensions around North Korea did not close the primary debt market this week, as Hyundai Motor Group’s US arm snapped up $1bn from a triple-tranche deal and Kookmin Bank priced a $500m trade on Monday.

Zai Lab, a Chinese biotechnology company, was set to price its IPO of American Depository Shares on Tuesday, expected to raise at least $105.9m.

Goldman Sachs laid out plans to turn around its FICC division, following two quarters in which the business underperformed its peers. The bank also laid out its plans to boost revenues across the bank in unprecedented detail, explaining to the market how it would add $5bn to revenues in three years.