Asia Pacific

Standard & Poor's has boosted Pakistan’s credit rating to B from B- on the back of improvements in the economy and the outlook of its fiscal and external positions, as well as better governance.

Lenders in the $260m syndicated loan for Kaz Minerals have agreed to waive the net debt to Ebitda covenant in the deal for another year as lower copper prices weigh on earnings for the Kazakh mining firm.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Peter Guenthardt and Chris Gammons are exchanging roles in Asia, with Guenthardt assuming leadership of southeast Asia and Gammons taking over global capital markets.

IPOs are on the verge of getting easier in Pakistan. The country’s market regulator has approved a new framework with the primary objectives of making it easy to do business and streamlining the public offering process.

Shanxi Road & Bridge Construction Group printed a three year bond on October 28. The trade is expected to set the pricing benchmark for Local Government Financing Vehicles from the province — which are looking to diversify funding channels by going offshore.

Central China Real Estate is looking to raise dollar funding to mainly refinance Singapore dollar notes sold in 2014.

ANZ is selling its retail and wealth businesses in some countries in Asia to DBS as CEO Shayne Elliot continues to restructure the bank's operations outside of Australia. The bank says the move will allow to focus more resources on institutional banking but comes in the wake of decision to cut jobs in the division.

BOC Aviation has used the full greenshoe on its latest dual-tranche fundraising, wrapping it up at $1.5bn to mark its single largest financing.

China’s United Photovoltaics Group is considering selling a new dollar bond and has mandated two leads to run its transaction.

ANZ has hired Jason Lam as a director of credit sales based in Hong Kong, poaching him from Nomura.

Blackstone held pitch meetings with banks in India earlier this month for what would be the country’s first real estate investment trust, at a possible size of $1bn.

Mason Financial Holdings has proposed a rights issue of over 20bn new shares in an attempt to raise HK$2.9bn ($373.9m) of fresh capital.