
Cloudflare fires salvo with hyper-aggressive US$1.75bn CB
Extreme volatility of share prices is allowing some companies to borrow for free in the US equity-linked market with next to no chance of experiencing dilution from the convertibles, with Cloudflare's US$1.75bn CB one of the most remarkable examples yet seen.


Banks’ foreign exchange trading desks are off to their best start to a year since 2022 after a sharp reversal in the US dollar ignited market volatility and triggered a surge in client activity.
Foreign exchange traders are eager to short the US dollar. The problem is the trade comes with a steep price tag.

Citigroup has quietly removed diversity and equity requirements from its US$1trn sustainable finance target, as Wall Street firms continue to retreat from DEI initiatives amid political attacks.
Just two years after UBS took over Credit Suisse and set out plans to expand its investment bank by filling gaps in coverage in the United States, that strategy could be upended after Swiss regulators hardened capital requirements for the bank.

The European Commission is preparing to launch special tax-free savings and investment accounts for its 450 million citizens, as a critical first step towards a capital markets union that has been talked about for more than a decade and has become a clear priority for the bloc in recent months.
United in disappointment
AFTER SWITZERLAND'S FEDERAL Council issued its new too-big-to-fail rules potentially resulting in UBS having to find an additional US$26bn of capital, Colm Kelleher and Sergio Ermotti offered their unequivocal response in a memo to staff. “As your chairman and CEO, we won’t sugarcoat it – we are disappointed by today’s announcement. And we know you are too. It is thanks to your hard work that UBS holds its enviable position in global finance, even more so after the rescue of Credit Suisse. That’s why we will stand our ground.”
Continue ReadingWarner Bros Discovery’s tender for up to US$14.6bn of bonds as part of a planned spinoff of its streaming business has tipped it into junk territory and left debtholders assessing how best to play the storied media giant.
Two new names have brought some variety to the run of refinancing transactions that have hit the European high-yield market, with the deals set to be followed by other debuts.

CAF priced a US$500m inaugural hybrid bond on Tuesday, marking the fourth public deal of its kind by a multilateral development bank and a significant milestone for the nascent asset class.

As Elon Musk’s xAI continues to market a US$5bn debt financing following the owner’s very public spat with US president Donald Trump, market participants have expressed mixed views on the deal while lead Morgan Stanley offers double-digit yields to get investors on board.

Market participants attending the Global ABS conference in Barcelona were cautiously optimistic about the European Union’s upcoming new securitisation framework, although the process of implementing it is expected to be long and the devil will be in the detail.

The significant risk transfer market, which has been growing rapidly in Europe since the 2010s, is spreading into new regions such as Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, according to attendees at the Global ABS conference in Barcelona.
SeaCube on Tuesday issued a US$400m container lease securitisation, opening up a part of the ABS market that is particularly exposed to US president Donald Trump's ever-changing tariff policy.

The US solar ABS sector is attempting to move past the bankruptcies of two regular issuers, Sunnova Energy and Solar Mosaic.
European CLO portfolios are stuffed with loans to borrowers that have been in the leveraged loan market for as long as 20 years – or even more in some cases. That may be too long, according to a CLO manager speaking at the Global ABS conference in Barcelona.

IFR hosts a comprehensive programme of conferences, seminars and roundtables throughout the year, providing authoritative insight into the trends and outlooks for specific regions and asset classes.

Citigroup has quietly removed diversity and equity requirements from its US$1trn sustainable finance target, as Wall Street firms continue to retreat from DEI initiatives amid political attacks.
Overcoming challenging conditions for sub-Saharan Africa sovereigns in public bond markets, sub-investment-grade Togo has used credit enhancement from Lloyd's of London insurers and the African Development Bank’s concessional lending arm to raise 20-year funding.

A bill that requires companies operating in New York to disclose their carbon footprint has failed to progress through the state legislature this year, delaying its potential enactment until at least 2026.
The European Investment Bank flexed its status as one of the SSA market's best bid issuers and built a record order book for its new 10-year euro deal. It achieved the milestone despite the trade coming months after the year's typical period of peak liquidity in January and February.
The International Development Association, part of the World Bank Group, made its debut in the Swiss franc market on Tuesday, June 10 with a SFr255m (US$310m) seven-year sustainable development bond. The paper came in a SFr30m larger size and just 1bp back of the previous month's similarly styled deal from stablemate IBRD.

Extreme volatility of share prices is allowing some companies to borrow for free in the US equity-linked market with next to no chance of experiencing dilution from the convertibles, with Cloudflare's US$1.75bn CB one of the most remarkable examples yet seen.

Nasdaq-listed Singapore ride-hailing and delivery company Grab Holdings has drawn strong demand for a US$1.5bn upsized convertible bond, as investors like the potential equity upside brought by a possible acquisition and the scarcity value of paper from a US-listed non-China Asian play.
Chime Financial shares surged nearly 40% on their US market debut on Thursday following above-range pricing of its US$864m Nasdaq IPO, highlighting the current strength of the US new issue market.
After an initially shaky start to the second quarter thanks to the tariff hokey-cokey in the US, EMEA IPOs appear to be showing signs of momentum with positive data points in the US now followed by a slew of deal launches in Europe.

A flurry of jumbo take-private deals has fuelled expectations of bumper M&A lending this year and next in Japan while also shining the spotlight on the depth of liquidity among bank lenders in the world’s fourth-largest economy.
Sponsors in Europe are releveraging portfolio companies at record levels through dividend recaps, as they squeeze money out of assets that are bogged down in a stalled M&A market.
Loans backing the mergers and acquisitions or spinoff activity of investment-grade companies are gathering steam with more than US$26bn of bridge financings announced in the last week, after a lacklustre start to the year in which event-driven transactions were stymied by volatility linked to Washington trade policies.

The rapid appreciation of the Taiwanese dollar against the greenback in the past seven weeks is having an unexpected ripple effect on a part of the domestic loan market in Taiwan that was already reeling from regulatory tightening last year.

Read the latest stories from the magazine IFR 2587 - 14 Jun 2025 - 20 Jun 2025
14 Jun 2025 - 20 Jun 2025
A very minor new high for the EUROSTOXX 600 with the market having run into trend resistance off highs from March. It has been an incredible rebound for stock markets in general but could be running out of momentum here. S&P futures have posted an inside day here with a sharp 0.8% loss. Japanese and Chinese markets closed today.
