Dayo Laniyan

From the political storm over Greenland, to a real-life storm across the US, the last week of January still saw notable deal issuance, including the return of corporates and more bank supply in the form of regional borrowers.

Weekly volume stood at $36.8bn, allowing the month as a whole to close out at nearly $187bn, close to January 2025’s volume of $189.9bn.

The technology sector was in the spotlight, starting with IBM double dipping into the European and US bond markets, as reported by 9fin.

Several hyperscalers released earnings, including Meta, which announced a substantial increase in its 2026 capital expenditure to between $115bn and $135bn, compared to $72.2bn spent in 2025.

However, tech stocks slid following Microsoft’s second quarter earnings on Wednesday. In spite of a rise in earnings and revenue, there were concerns on the growth of the company’s cloud computing business being slower than expected.

Adding to the uncertainty were concerns over new AI models, which have already sent jitters throughout the leveraged loan and HY market.

The week was punctuated by the US Federal Reserve’s first interest rate decision of the year on Wednesday, which was then upstaged US President Trump’s nomination for the central bank’s new chair, revealed to be former Fed governor Kevin Warsh.

On Wednesday, rates were held at 3.5%-3.75%, largely in-line with expectations. The market was more focused on what Fed Chair Powell had to say following the decision, as questions rose on the central bank’s future leadership. During the press conference, Powell stressed the importance of central bank independence.

“The point of independence is not to protect policymakers or anything like that. It just is that every advanced economy, democracy in the world has come around to this common practice. ” he said.

Two days after the rate decision, President Donald Trump announced that he had nominated Warsh as the new chair. Warsh had served as a Fed governor from 2006 to 2011.

The pre-Fed part of the week was dominated by issuance from the FIG side, defying winter storms in the US on Monday which caused 23 states to declare a state of emergency.

The most notable deal was Goldman Sachs, taking another dip into the bond market on Monday (January 26) after pricing its largest deal on record two weeks prior.

This week’s offering was a $2.5bn subordinated 15NC10 issue, and priced at T+118bp, from IPTs of T+140bp. The orderbook was last heard reaching $10.5bn, reflecting a more than 4x oversubscription.

Aside from this, regional banks continued to take advantage of earnings season to raised debt following the big banks.

Issuers this week included Fifth Third with a $2.5bn dual-tranche, following the release of its fourth quarter and full year results last week.

There was also Midwest-based regional bank Old National Bancorp, stepping forward with its first bond issued since its merger with First Midwest Bancorp in 2021. The deal in question was a $300m subordinated note with a tenor of 10NC5, and a final spread of T+195bp.

Tuesday saw deals from non-domestic banks such as Macquarie and Royal Bank of Canada, while on Thursday, Morgan Stanley stepped forward to issue debt.

“It's been notable that you've seen such significant bank supply come like you have from the US money centers and the strong regional banks, but it's a function of the investor receptivity that has followed their really good earnings,” said Jon Curren, head of investment grade credit at Principal Asset Management.

“They don't need to fund as much, particularly with the SLR reform, the supplementary leverage ratio reform, which will, over time, require less long-term debt issuance needs. But because the market's open, they're taking advantage of favorable funding and raising fresh debt right now”.

Friday had one late deal come in from Barings Private Credit Corp: a $350m 3-year set of SUNs with IPTs at T+255bp area.

Though FIGs were dominant for the remainder of January, there was still a smidge of activity from the corporate space.

Perhaps the standout deal was from FedEx, with its largest dollar bond package since April 2020, as part of the spin-off of the transport company’s freight business, first announced in late 2024.

Specifically, the $3.7bn four-tranche deal is being issued by the spin-off FedEx Freight, and proceeds will go towards partly funding the purchase of the parent company’s contribution of assets to the new Fedex Freight business.

There was also IBM Corp, which chose to issue bonds on Thursday in both euros and dollars, with a €3.5bn bond package, and a $3.25bn multi-trancher, as reported by 9fin.

Also on Thursday, AT&T issued a $7bn multi-tranche deal split between five tranches, which will go towards general corporate purposes and pending acquisitions.

In terms of new issue concessions, IBM’s tranches ranged between 1bps to 7bps, and AT&T’s deal between -3bps to 9bps, according to Bank of America research.

As reported previously by 9fin, AT&T had agreed in August 2025 to acquire EchoStar’s 3.45 GHz and 600 MHz spectrum licenses for $22.65bn. The deal is on-track to be completed in mid-2026.

Elsewhere, M&A activity has started to pick up, with Vancouver-based engineering company Leidos agreeing to acquire ENTRUST Solutions Group from Kohlberg for $2.4bn, a deal on-track to be completed by the second quarter of 2026.

The deal will be funded through $1.4bn in new debt, $500m in cash and $500m in commercial paper. Leidos confirmed that it has a $1.4bn bridge facility with Citi, and will issue bonds in the open window.

There is also consumer goods company Clorox Co, which on 22 January announced its planned acquisition of GOJO Industries, the maker of Purell, for $2.25bn.

As reported by 9fin, Clorox intends to fund the acquisition primarily through debt financing. Should the company turn to bond issuance, it would end a four-year hiatus from the market.

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