Wells Fargo Securities

US utilities continued to dominate dollar corporate bond issuance this week, as defensive names piled into the market before trade tensions slammed the brakes on supply on Wednesday. But issuers fought back on Thursday.

Triton International, a global shipping container firm based in Bermuda, has amended and extended a $1.25bn revolving credit facility, cutting its debt cost in the process.

Wells Fargo has appointed John Langley as head of the corporate and investment bank for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Langley was previously head of global financing and risk solutions at Barclays.

The dollar corporate bond market showed its resilience this week as issuance rebounded, despite the US-China trade turmoil. “Trump, Trump, Trump,” was how one syndicate manager explained the reasons for the return of volatility as high grade credit markets see-sawed with the President’s mood swings.

HSBC led a surge in dollar bond supply as high-grade banks sprang back into issuance mode after a two-week layoff.

Berry Global, the US plastic packaging maker, will raise bonds to finance its purchase of UK plastics maker RPC Group, it said on Wednesday. The debt raising will feature $3bn of senior secured notes in two tranches. This marks the end of leveraged finance bankers' hopes that the auction of RPC would deliver substantial new money supply to the European market.

Switzerland’s Transocean has amended its bank revolving credit facility to increase the size to $1.36bn, with the fallen angel offshore contract drilling services provider keeping an additional $140m in the wings on the undrawn facility.

US bond bankers are looking forward to a bumper May, with a slew of big ticket M&A financings set to hit the dollar market within days. Bristol-Myers Squibb announced a roadshow on Thursday for a deal that is expected to be around $21bn, to help fund its acquisition of Celgene.

The cost of funding in euros or sterling has swung back into favour for dollar-focused financial institutions in recent months, heralding the return of several North American banks to the market, including Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo attracted plenty of interest in a new five year senior bond in euros on Wednesday and was able to squeeze all of the new issue premium out of the transaction, its first in euros for two years.

On Friday, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo posted falls in investment banking revenue for last quarter. But debt underwriting business was a bright spot for both banks.

The financial institutions bond market was confined to a handful of small trades this week, as Wall Street self-funders prepared to pull the trigger on multi-billion trades after reporting season.