Asia Pacific

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.

In the 26th annual FX Poll, Asiamoney invited senior management, senior treasury and financial executives from listed companies, SMEs, banks, fund management firms and other financial institutions to rate their top five FX providers in Asia-Pacific.

In just a few days, the renminbi will be officially included in the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights basket — a move widely seen as a validation of the currency’s internationalisation. But the actual impact of the development on fund flows is expected to be limited, market participants told GlobalRMB.

Taiwan life insurers are addicted to long dated callable private placements. But what was once a beneficial habit, is no longer offering juicy returns. As yields continue to slide, the Taiwanese MTN market is having to adapt to the changing environment, writes Jonathan Breen.

Renminbi bonds in Taiwan had a spectacular run for most of last year. But a new age of renminbi volatility combined with weaker regulatory momentum has put the market on hold in 2016. Nevertheless market participants agree that the renminbi promise remains an enticing one. Paolo Danese reports.

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.

Hong Kong-headquartered conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings is readying a global sweep of debt markets to raise refinancing funds, announcing on Wednesday morning that it intends to sell a euro-denominated eight year senior unsecured bond just hours after announcing a dollar trade in Hong Kong.

Divergent pricing expectations between Korean Air Lines (KAL) and investors forced the issuer to pull its hybrid bond on Tuesday evening after a two-day syndication process. The cancellation has dashed hopes of a comeback in high yield issuance from South Korea as the single-B rated trade was slated to be the first since September 2010. Addison Gong reports.

A loans distribution banker has joined the syndicated finance team of DBS in Hong Kong.

Heads turned in the investment world early in September, when BlackRock published a 15 page think piece on ‘Adapting Portfolios to Climate Change’. In fact, it could be a turning point. If the world’s largest asset manager is taking climate change seriously, other mainstream firms, especially in the US, now have little excuse for ignoring it. Ewen Cameron Watt, senior director at the BlackRock Investment Institute, spoke to Jon Hay about why all investors need to be climate-aware.

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