United States

The US private placement market has hosted a few whopper deals from European issuers this year, but overall dealflow has been underwhelming. Meanwhile, the Schuldschein market has had its second busiest quarter ever and has already led bankers to raise their full year volume predictions. Rob Cooke and Elly Whittaker report.

Two blockbuster trades from US drug giants Mylan and Pfizer propelled US corporate issuance to its largest month ever as investors continued to put money to work on new deals.

Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp has wrapped up a landmark $8.9bn sell-down in Alibaba Group Holdings through a combination of five separate transactions, including raising $5.5bn via the sale of mandatory exchangeable trust securities (METS). The size of the METS is impressive, making it the largest equity-linked deal globally since 2010, but it also came with a structure almost never seen before in Asia. Jonathan Breen reports.

US insurer AIG, one of the major players in the subprime mortgage crisis, has been welcomed back to the euro bond market for the first time since its rescue.

Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp has blown open the equity-linked market with the launch of a $5bn bond exchangeable into shares of Alibaba Group Holdings, part of a planned $7.9bn sell-down in the e-commerce giant’s stock.

A key measure of US market volatility has hit its lowest point for a year, suggesting traders are counting on the recent calm to continue, with no shocks or surprises.

As the state of Illinois faces one of the worst budget standoffs in its history, some lawmakers are proposing a tax on derivatives that one advocate called the "single-bullet solution”.

Property developer Frasers Centrepoint is likely to begin bookbuilding on Friday for a potential S$900m ($651.5m) real estate investment trust IPO in Singapore, a source close to the deal told GlobalCapital Asia.

Walgreens Boots Alliance unveiled a five trancher on Thursday as it looked to tie up the acquisition financing for its $17bn purchase of Rite Aid ahead of the holiday weekend, following a bumper month for issuance in the US high grade bond market.

Bayer and Monsanto are circling each other as they both seek acceptable terms for a merger that would create a world leader in crop science. For the equity capital markets, the deal holds out the possibility of one of the world’s largest ever rights issues.

Additional tier one paper took centre stage in the FIG market this week, with risk appetite firmly back on and new supply set to ramp up in the coming sessions.

Brent and WTI oil futures have risen to above $50 for the first time since November and July respectively, amid bullish short term positioning by aggressive managers and supportive supply data this week. But while traders called this a ‘psychological’ level for the commodity, physical markets are still sounding a note of caution.