Global commodities giant Louis Dreyfus announced late Sunday it is planning to issue bonds for the first time in its 160-year history, according to its CEO Serge Schoen.

The firm is intending to boost investments by around 40 percent when weighed against the volume of ventures made between 2006 and 2011. The privately held food trading powerhouse will also undertake several acquisitions, leading to estimated spending of around $7bn, according to reports.

Dreyfus is set to finance its expansion plans via the capital markets and cash. “We have a strong balance sheet but we want to diversify our sources of capital,” Schoen told reporters.

The group recently reported sales of $59.6bn, up 29 percent year-on-year.

China National Offshore Oil Corp (Cnooc), China’s biggest offshore oil producer, late on Wednesday commenced its first unaided deepwater exploration in the South China Sea.

Cnooc’s independent deep water oil drilling marks the beginning of a new era, as it typically relied on foreign partnerships such as the one established with Canadian Husky Energy.

The move to go solo comes amid increased tensions over ownership regarding disputed waters in the region and is perceived to be the Chinese’s response to Philippine patrol ships around the area.

The part of the sea being drilled is known as the 43/11 block and reaches water depths of around 2,454 metres, making it the deepest in the South China Sea.

It’s with great pleasure that World Finance announces the opening of voting of the 2013 Legal Awards.

Now in its sixth year, the World Finance Legal Awards are fast becoming the global benchmark for the industry. Celebrating the best firms and individuals working within the sector, the objective of the awards is to capture and examine the top performers, informing the World Finance readership of those at the forefront of the market.

Outside of the legal industry the awards will provide a definitive point of reference for firms, for commercial and private clients, professional advisers, and C suite executives searching for a roadmap to business law.

Firms of different sizes, across different markets, within different areas of practice are being considered and inevitably this will lead to lengthy debates where, achievement, excellence and innovation will be considered as key criteria.

With voting now open, World Finance editor and head of the judging panel Alexander Redcliffe is inviting nominations through the magazine’s website. Each category has been carefully selected to reflect the broad spectrum of areas, skills and practises inherent to excellent performance in the field.

To vote for the World Finance 2013 Legal Awards, go to: http://www.worldfinance.com/awards/legal-awards

Unemployment figures for March within the 17 nations of the eurozone rose by 169,000 or at a rate of 10.9 percent, the highest level since the euro launch, said statistics agency Eurostat.

The worse numbers came out of Spain at 24.1 percent, Portugal at 15.3 percent and Greece, where the unemployment rate hit 21.7 percent.

The increase means official unemployment figures are now at 17.4 million within the eurozone. Over the past year joblessness increased by 1.68 million.

The news comes as France and Greece are preparing to hold national elections on Sunday and a day before the European Central Bank’s monthly monetary policy meeting.

Tough austerity measures and harsh labour reforms are hurting employment markets globally, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Unemployment figures are forecast to increase at a rate of 6.1 percent to 202 million during 2012.

The organisation found that employment levels are not expected to return to pre-crisis levels until the end of 2016. The report said that fiscal austerity had “devastating consequences” for employment and warned that unless governments combined their austerity schemes with job creation they were taking the risk of fuelling public unrest.
This was confirmed by the World of Work Report 2012, which showed that an estimated 196 million people were out of work globally at the end of 2011.

Standard & Poor’s late on Thursday cut Spain’s sovereign credit rating by two notches due to “a challenging fiscal outlook” for the nation.

The ratings agency downgraded the country from A to BBB+.

The drop reflects the agency’s views on “the mounting risks to Spain’s net general government debt as a share of GDP in light of the contracting economy, in particular due to the deterioration in the budget deficit trajectory for 2011-2015,” S&P said.

S&P cited concerns about the implementation of Spain’s €27bn austerity programme and the likeliness of its government having to provide “further fiscal support” to bail out the country’s troubled banking sector.

South Korea’s GDP grew 2.8 percent year-on-year for the first quarter 2012, slipping to its weakest level in two and a half years, according to figures published by the central bank on Thursday.

The country’s economy expanded in the quarter by 0.9 percent thanks to gains in exports and improved domestic demand. The consumer confidence index climbed to 104 in April, the highest since May last year.

GDP results come just a month after the central bank reduced the country’s growth forecast from the previous 3.7 percent to 3.5 percent for 2012.

Europe’s largest oil company, Royal Dutch Shell, on Tuesday said it has come to an agreement to buy Mozambique-focused Cove Energy for £1.12bn, according to a company statement.

Shell secured the deal after it increased its offer for Cove Energy from a previous 195 pence to 220 pence a share to match a competing offer from Thailand’s PTT Exploration & Production.

Cove put itself up for sale in January following a large natural gas discovery off the coast of Mozambique. It now owns a 8.5 percent stake in the Rovuma Area 1 natural gas block, which may hold an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet of fuel.

Shares in Cove rose 2.5 percent, to 226.7, following the news.

Dutch finance minister Jan Kees de Jager cut short US-based IMF austerity talks to return home after the governing coalition in The Hague failed to reach an agreement on deficit limits which were imposed by the EU.

De Jager will attempt to reassure ratings agencies that he is able to put the country’s budget back on track after Geert Wilders withdrew his party’s support for the minority government in parliament. The country is in danger of losing its AAA rating if no agreement is reached.

Wilders rejected budget cuts, saying he “will not bow to dictators and Brussels’ bureaucrats.” The move has brought the nation’s government to near collapse and is likely to precipitate early elections.

The Dutch government is due to submit its 2013 budget to the EU by April 30.

Credit ratings agency Egan-Jones and the firm’s founder Sean Egan are expected to face charges for allegedly making material and intentional misstatements in its application to US securities regulators. The charge refers to information in rating sovereign debt and asset-backed securities in 2008.

The civil action filed by the SEC concerns Egan-Jones’ conflict of interest policy issues, as well as misleading the regulator over its finances, internal proceedings, its rating and the adequacy of its records and book-keeping.

Egan-Jones said it plans to vigorously defend itself against the SEC claims.