Asean

A number of Asian borrowers are choosing to prepay their syndicated loans for various reasons, including a bearish outlook on growth. Their actions are compounding the woes of loan syndications bankers, who are already battling low deal activity, writes Shruti Chaturvedi.

Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp, the local arm of oil and gas conglomerate Royal Dutch Shell, has started sounding out investors for its upcoming Ps29.7bn ($614.9m) IPO. It is coming at a time when the country’s equities market and currency have been volatile, but early signs suggest the issuer is set to defy the challenges. Jonathan Breen reports.

Siong Ooi, who until recently was head of the Asia Pacific syndicated and leveraged finance unit at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML), is understood to be heading to Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) in December, according to multiple sources.

Fullerton Healthcare Corp plans to raise up to S$270.8m ($199m) in an IPO on the Singapore Exchange, launching the deal on Thursday.

What I would not give to be one of those guys who has a helicopter at his beck and call, a limousine and a personal assistant whose sole responsibility is to make life easy and organised.

Unrated HNA Group made a quick return with a $200m bond this week, just one month after its last offering. On the same day, Kawasan Industri Jababeka from Indonesia also priced an exchange offer for its existing 2019s.

The conglomerate ownership of the largest banks in the Philippines is coming under greater scrutiny as the regulator and even the International Monetary Fund express concern. Increased foreign ownership is one way to reduce the risk, but that strategy presents its own challenges. Peter McGill reports.

A range of credits from India, Malaysia and Greater China stormed the Asian debt market on Thursday, vying for investor attention.

Thailand has ambitious plans to plug its infrastructure gap but before these investments can take off, funding must take centre stage. Project bonds are one way to overcome this. Asiamoney speaks to a group of leading market participants about how the Kingdom’s domestic liquidity can be harnessed to fund infrastructure developments, and why project bonds make sense for both issuers and investors.

International investment banks are taking a knife to their Asian operations amid slower capital markets activity, even as competition from Chinese lenders intensifies.

The Philippine market regulator has given the go ahead to the local arm of oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell to list in the country.

Singapore’s OCBC Bank has promoted Elaine Lam to the position of head of global corporate banking, succeeding George Lee who is retiring.