Wells Fargo Securities

Bank of America signalled the last hurrah of post-earnings supply by Wall Street heavyweights when it hit the market on Monday with a $5bn bond.

Wells Fargo has reorganised its group structure, including hiving out its corporate and investment bank as a separate business line and giving it a new leader.

The Reverse Yankee market could be set for another strong year in 2020, with Wells Fargo adding last week to an already encouraging running supply total in the format.

Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs accounted for the lion’s share of dollar FIG supply this week as they led a return of senior unsecured issuance following a glut of preferred supply.

Records tumbled in the US bond market this week, as Bank of America and Toronto Dominion set new pricing records.

Wall Street heavyweights piled into the dollar market with a string of tightly-priced preferred share deals, after reporting full-year earnings this week amid FIG supply of $25bn in just four days.

The latest battle in the campaign to weaken corporate governance standards in the US is being fought over rule changes that would make it harder for investors to propose motions at shareholder meetings. The ‘proxy advisers’ so central to US governance also face new restrictions.

Robert "Bob" Fernandez, a veteran of EM debt capital markets, has joined Saudi Aramco's treasury.

Norwegian oil exploration and production company Aker BP is positioning itself as an investment grade issuer with a new dual tranche dollar mandate, with a call targeting bond buyers with IG mandates, and an unsecured issue structure. The company received its second IG rating last November.

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.

Investec has entered the loan market for the third time this year, taking a $450m two year term loan from a range of international lenders.

Bank issuers led a flurry of dollar bond deals this week, as they dashed to wrap up funding before year end and ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s final meeting of 2019.