Asia Pacific

China Evergrande Group opened a dual-tranche transaction on Friday, becoming the second dollar issuer from Asia ex-Japan to come to the market after the US interest rate rise this week.

South Africa’s Nedbank is dipping its toes into Asian liquidity for a $350m three year bullet that gives lenders the option of committing in dollars and euros.

A bold £2bn mandatorily exchangeable bond issue for Anil Agarwal, founder and chairman of Vedanta Resources, captured global headlines on Wednesday and Thursday as he used it to buy a stake of about 12% in Anglo American, the mining group.

The MTN market for real estate developers in Singapore has sparked to life. This could be linked to the government’s relaxation of property market measures that took effect on March 11.

Leading Chinese technology firms including Alibaba Group Holdings, its affiliate Ant Financial and Tencent have swept into the loan market and are said to be seeking a collective $13bn-$14bn. Given their acquisitive tendencies, their latest fundraisings have found strong support from relationship lenders, despite political risks surrounding some of the targets, writes Shruti Chaturvedi.

State Bank of India’s central board has agreed a plan to raise up to Rp150bn ($2.3bn) in the equity capital market, according to a stock exchange filing on Wednesday.

UBS has made a number of new hires across its Asia Pacific businesses, according to memos seen by GlobalCapital Asia this week.

Chinese local government financing vehicle (LGFV) Fujian Zhanglong Group wrapped up a $200m tap of its bonds this week, as it aimed to get its funding out of the way ahead of any unpredictable moves in the US Treasury yield, said bankers close to the trade.

Hong Kong’s expat bankers have perfected the art of a post-party client meeting. And they are now showing the rest of the world how, as a young friend of mine just proved on a business trip to Sydney.

Asian dollar debt issuers breathed a sigh of relief this week as spreads tightened in secondary and the market stabilised on Thursday, following a widely expected interest rate hike announcement by the US Federal Reserve. The path is now clear for more aggressively priced bonds in the coming weeks, say market watchers. Morgan Davis reports.

Citi has reshuffled its southeast Asian corporate and investment banking (CIB) leadership, with David Biller and Jonathan Quek set to take on more responsibility.

South Korean mobile game developer Netmarble Games plans to submit its IPO prospectus on Friday and start pre-deal investor education on March 20, according to a banker working on the deal.