Dong Energy of Denmark became the biggest IPO this year and rose 10% in its first day of trading to Dkr 259/sh. It runs offshore wind farms. The sellers include Goldman Sachs (which is keeping 13.4% of its former 19% stake, however.) Goldman financed the switch to wind by Dong 2 years ago when the Danish government refused to, and quickly doubled its money. The US investment bank set firm conditions for its investment including an IPO by 2018, getting put options, veto rights on changes in investment and strategy, and other conditions to limit Copenhagen interference. The government until now owned 59% of Dong.

 A lot about Mexico for a change, and more deals out of Hong Kong and more Latin finance moves.

Talent and Telcos

Talent agencies WME-IMG will join with Tencent, Fountainvest Partners, and Sequoia Capital China to expand US Chinese coverage of sports and entertainment with targeted ads on TCEHY's WeChat. TCEHY will replace cash hungry Japan's Sofbank which invested in the 2014-merged former William Morris Agency, a long-term China pioneer this spring, Probably a quick profit for SFTBY, will result. Source:Variety.

Separately, TCEHY is rumored to be in talks with Finnish game-maker Supercell Oij to replace SoftBank as dominant shareholder. The Japanese group may need to sell. When we reported on this earlier the valuation estimate by Bloomberg was $5 billion for the maker of Clash of Clans and other mobile games. Now it is believed to be $9 billion, again from Bloomberg. We reported earlier this week on deals involving a movie studio. We wrote recently about how TCEHY will finance a capital increase at WeBank (controlled by TCEHY) which will to charge for loans made for e-commerce because China will not let foreigners invest in its highly risky on-line shadow banking sector.

China may be in slow-down mode but its netizens are not slowing down their internet activities and Tencent is leading them into new businesses. I am having trouble keep up with the blaze of moves.

Vodacom of South Africa was featured on the Deutsche Bank ADR site this morning. This firm is part owned by Vodafone and, confusingly, trades there as VOD-JSE. However its ADR is VDMCY.

Our Vodafone is busy in the southern hemisphere too as it will merge its New Zealand telco with Sky Network there. SKY sells TV services and has 830,000 New Zealand subscribers, while VOD (of Q) has telco subscribers, 2.35 million using mobile phones and a half million using landlines. The merger is worth US$2.4 bn to be paid by Sky (a part of the Rupert Murdoch Down Under business) to VOD, whose shares dropped on the news.

From the Oil Patch

S&P today left unchanged its rating on Ecopetrol's unsecured 10-yr notes initially issued in Sept 2013 at $1.3 billion yielding 5.875% after EC used an add-on provision to borrow another $500 million under the same terms. The main reason for backing the issue despite the increased liability is that the Colombian government will provide “extraordinary support” under conditions of “financial distress” at EC because it is the controlling shareholder although EC has independent management. The second reason is that EC debt is under 20% of its capitalization.

Bloomberg's boo-boo was reporting that Schlumberger Ltd (SLB) had named Helge Lund as CEO. The Norwegian oilman took over as head of BG just in time to negotiate its takeover by Royal Dutch Shell. Paal Skipsgaard, another Norwegian, is SLB CEO already. Helge Lund was merely named to the SLB board. During the interval between the two reports an insider appears to have sold $733,000 shares.

More Materials

SoQuiMich is again under regulatory pressure in Chile, this time over environmental rules on its extraction of iodine from the Llamara salt flats where it set up water pumps without permission. The firm, which is controlled by a relative of former dictator Augusto Pinochet, won permission to double output at the project in the north at Nueva Victoria in 2010 to 11,000 metric tonnes/yr under strict conditions. This is the second licensing dispute for SQM which is also said to have failed to pay proper royalties to Chile from its lithium and potassium mines in the Atacama salt desert.

We bought into SQM when its insider-dominated board was reformed under institutional pressure, but we under-estimated the potential risks from the disconnect between the company and the Michelle Bachelet-headed government which has been going on since she won the election. Morgan Stanley retains its hold recommendation on SQM but removed its $33 target price.

Mexichem won a buy rating today from local brokerage Banamex which decided it likes the chemical production sector south of the border, of which MXCHY is the leading global Mexican player. We told you first.

I own a small cap, Uranium Energy, UEC, which says the present uranium supply glut is due to revers​e​ as nuclear reactors are built and demand grows. Its CEO Amir Adnana told Bloomberg that stockpiles will be eroded. As I have frequently noted recently, hefty investment by Cameco of Canada is another indicator of the uranium mining industry building up uranium mining and refining inventory for booming future demand. The spot uranium price is down but very little nuclear fuel is in fact traded spot. In both Canada and Kazakhstan, CCJ is building up its supplies on the assumption that prices will more than double as new power plants come on stream in the next 3 years.

Reader Joe Shaefer, a retired Air Force General (no less) corrected me about the C-12 plane that CAE is training US military to fly in Alabama using a testing system from the Encyclopedia Britannica. It is not a fixed wing fight plane, he writes, but a military version of the Beechcraft Super King Air used to support US embassies, transport people, and sometimes do medical evacuation. Apologies. The press release did not indicate what the plane was use for and I guessed wrong. Joe runs Sanford Wealth Mgm LLC and you can sign up at 775-832-5440 or at www.sanfordwealth.com/

Agrium Inc (AGU) was downrated by Crédit Agricole analysts all the way from underweight to sell, which is unusual. However the street gives AGU a top rating of hold (8) while it also is rated buy (8) and strong buy (by Bank of Montreal reiterated) and by Scotiabank (for its “focus list”). Their collective target price is $102.06, up 6.5%.

Vale, after rising 5.25% yesterday and breaking over $5.05,​ today fell back to open at $4.96. It was rated neutral with a $4.40 target price today by Goldman Sachs which expects a sharp fall in iron ore prices. The main mover of Brazilian stocks is politics. According to website ETFdb.com, the traffic to its site looking for ETFs with exposure to Brazil rose 51% in the last week as the MSCI Brazil Capped ETF, EWZ, jumped 8%. YTD EWZ is up 40%. Vale fell today on the prediction by National Australian Bank that the price of iron ore pellets will drop to $40/metric tonne next year. Actually, VALE should be doing better as Brasilia now says there is no plot afoot to replace CEO Ferreira and the Dow Jones survey of analysts predicted an average target price of $10. Vale is down 9% now on the close Weds.

In sympathy, Brazilian ethanol and coal-substitute maker Cosan fell 2.5% too. CZZ does not produce iron ore and is free of political overtones, unlike Vale, where the govt pension plans control a large bloc of the stock.

Bonus stock: Ormat (NYSE-ORA) is becoming more American and saw 3 insiders, two of them definitely Israelis from their names, selling a total of 798,000 shares. ORA develops thermal energy sites and is branching into energy storage systems for intermittent solar and wind energy sources.

Pharma

Teva's new migraine treatment, awaiting FDA approval, is likely to run into competition from Amgen and Novartis, whose competing drug aced phase II trials. TEVA is ahead however.

Separately, the FDA appears to be unconvinced that a Pfizer oral opioid painkiller, Troxyca extended release, can deter abuse. While the TEVA application won panel approval earlier this week, the PFE one rejected a label claiming it can deter abuse.

Galapagos nv of Belgium will be added to the Euronext Amsterdam index on June 20, which covers the top 25 shares traded in the oldest stock market in the world. It is the first biotech firm included in the AEX. GLPG, of Mechelen, is also on Q. As a result of Alice in Indexland rules, the Belgian firm will have to be included in funds tracking the AEX or European stock exchanges overall. CEO Onno van de Stolpe of GLPG is Dutch and listed it in Amsterdam 11 years ago. The drug discovery firm, which hired away our former Milan-based biotech maven, is working on arthritis, cystic fibrosis, and inflammation drugs and recently was invested in by Gilead (GILD) of the USA.

Reckitt Benckiser is rated buy by investorsintelligence.com with a target price of GBX 7000 (£ 70). The share now is at GBX 6952 so we are near the target, unless it is raised. For us long-term owners these charts which moreover are based on the sterling price (while we eat in dollars) are mostly irrelev​a​nt. The rise of Zika makes condoms a key accessory for anyone in Latin America these days which will benefit their maker notably in afflicted Brazil.

Given the mess at Valeant I am surprised that Pershing Square Holdings NAV rose to $17.3 this week from $17.07 last week. And given how poorly he handled his negotiations with Walgreen's I think Mike Pearson does not deserve the huge bonus and options he has been given.

Latin Banks and Finance

Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) was downgraded by Macquarie and Deutsche Bank analysts from outperform and buy to hold. An insider sold US $267,000 shares in Canada's bank specializing in Latin American rather than US operations unlike the rest of the Bay Street banks. I think the share is likely to gain from a revival of the economies of its region, starting with Mexico (on condition that the next president doesn't trump my forecast.) There are reasons to be upbeat about Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina, and moreover the situation in Venezuela has got to change.

Fibra Uno successfully raised $500 million in Eurodollar markets with a reopening of its 5.25% bond which matures in 2026 for an additional $200 million at a better yield, of only 5.15% and its 6.99% bond due in 2044 for an additional $300 million, with the new interest rate not specified, but unlikely to be higher. FBASF, a ​Mexico ​REIT, is hurrying to get dollars at a time when the peso exchange rate is inching up from historic lows. It covers the risk by repaying what it owes over time and by using currency hedges. The add-ons were 3x oversubscribed and helped reopen the Mexican corporate bond market. Mexico should gain from anything short of a Trump victory since its economy is linked to ours more than other Latin ones; since it is an oil export​er​ and oil prices are up again; and since its forex market is unfairly used to exit other Latin currencies, because it is the largest and more accessible one for global currency traders. That of course works both ways, and the bottom may have been reached.