Asia Pacific

The year started with plenty of excitement, as the RMB gained ground against the dollar in onshore and offshore markets, activity surged in RMB futures in Hong Kong, and the third batch of free trade zones (FTZ) opened for business. Plus, a recap of our coverage.

Royal Bank of Canada, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Deutsche Pfandbriefbank tapped the sterling covered bond market this week at cheaper levels than they could have achieved in euros and dollars.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia swept up remaining demand in the now saturated five year sterling covered bond market on Thursday, while Deutsche Pfandbriefbank (PBB) got a fair reception for the first three year floating rate covered bond of the year.

Asia’s equity capital market got away to a modest start to the year, with multiple share sales planned across the region for January alone. As ever, issuers will try to bring fundraisings as early as possible, even if that means squeezing into a tight window between now and Chinese New Year. John Loh and Jonathan Breen report.

Bharat PetroResources has become the first Indian issuer to set out plans for a dollar outing this year, with roadshows due to wrap up early next week. With the Chinese New Year holidays expected to keep many mainland issuers at bay, DCM bankers said Indian firms will make up some of the shortfall. Morgan Davis and Addison Gong report.

A jump in the cost of dollar funds at Taiwanese banks is causing concern in the syndications market even as the overall direction of loan pricing remains firmly downward. Bankers in Taipei said the situation could ease by the end of the first quarter but until then, they face the hard choice of settling for lower returns or seeing their loan books stagnate. Shruti Chaturvedi reports.

I think the French got it right when they recently decided that employees should be able to ignore work emails after hours.

Goldman Sachs’ ECM team in Hong Kong has shrunk, with the departure of the co-head of ECM syndicate for Asia Pacific ex-Japan.

China Aoyuan Property Group raised $250m in the first bond issuance from Asia ex-Japan this year, with investors flocking to the deal and driving the order book to a 10 times subscription.

Invitations are out for a $1.8bn Asian loan that will refinance a US term loan B for Novelis. The launch comes about a month after the firm mandated 10 lenders to arrange the borrowing.

BNP Paribas opened the block market in Asia with a W382.1bn ($316.7m) sell-down in South Korea’s Shinhan Financial Group Co this week.

China’s WuXi BioLogics is looking south of the border to Hong Kong to go public, preparing an IPO that could raise $300m, according to a banker close to the deal.