Asia Pacific

A long drawn out fundraising for MNC Sky Vision is coming down to the wire after Moody’s downgraded its parent this week, citing refinancing risks. A default could spell more bad news for Indonesian borrowers, especially coming so close to last month’s missed payment by Royal Industries Indonesia. John Loh reports.

The southeast Asian businesses of Standard Chartered have come into focus recently, with the bank naming new CEOs for its Thailand and Philippine offices.

Indonesian power producer Cikarang Listrindo slashed its funding costs and extended the maturity of its debt profile with a popular $550m 10 year note priced at a 4.96% coupon — setting a new benchmark for the country’s issuers.

Veolia Environnement became the first French company and only the second European corporate to issue a Panda bond, raising Rmb1bn ($150m) this month with a privately placed note.

Crédit Agricole CIB has hired a ‘head of international’, a new role at the bank’s global markets division. Gene Kim joins from Standard Chartered, and will oversee the markets business in the Americas, Asia and the Middle East.

Going for meetings in Hong Kong is stressful enough, but as I recently learned, it is not just traffic that one has to watch out for.

Two Hong Kong-based loans bankers from Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Asia Pacific debt solutions team have left, while Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ has lost its southeast Asia loans head.

Dalian Wanda Group Corp is expected to begin gauging demand for a $600m borrowing next week that help to fund the development of a tower project in Chicago, said sources.

US-listed Chinese travel company Ctrip.com International has raised $2.2bn after pricing a convertible bond and a block of American Depositary Shares.

Asia’s block market got a boost this week as investors sold down stakes in Longfor Properties Co and People's Insurance Company of China (PICC) in Hong Kong, while Lippo Group trimmed its holding in Indonesia’s Matahari Department Store.

India’s Yes Bank has bagged as much as Rp66.3bn ($996.7m) from a qualified institutional placement (QIP), the largest so far in the country’s financial year.

In a shift that has some bankers worried, Hong Kong’s IPO market has reached a stage where advisers need to pitch for a deal armed with cornerstone investors. Equity capital markets houses can no longer rely on their experience and investor contacts to win business as issuers turn a deaf ear to price discovery. Jonathan Breen reports.