Asia Pacific

Société Générale has named David Gore as head of shipping and offshore finance for Asia Pacific, replacing Gareth Williams, who is taking over as head of loan syndicate and sales for the region.

Investors have covered 20% of Ujjivan Financial Services’ Rp8.8bn ($132.3m) Indian IPO by the second day of bookbuilding.

The number of offshore RMB hubs has risen rapidly in the last few years to hit 20 last year. But having more offshore hubs does not necessarily equates to more global usage of the currency, say market observers who are hoping China will adopt a new strategy.

Japanese sovereign bonds managed to deliver positive returns on Thursday, while almost every other asset class suffered from the Bank of Japan’s decision to reject further loosening of monetary policy

Chinese mainland investors, who regulators were driven to dissuade from speculation after last year's spring fling in stock trading, have begun buying commodity futures in record size – and, with it, brought similar alarm and another regulatory pushback.

Chinese paediatric nutrition company Biostime International Holdings has put into motion an $845m loan package to refinance debt.

It has been a promising start to the year for leveraged buyout loans (LBOs) for Indian companies. With Chinese banks aggressively capturing domestically sponsored outbound M&A funding, international lenders are looking elsewhere for opportunities and India is proving a hit, writes Shruti Chaturvedi.

JD.com’s inaugural outing in the international bond market could not have veered any further from expectations when the notes tanked in the secondary market. An overzealous pricing strategy was the main culprit for the poor performance, but divisive credit ratings for the Chinese company did not help either. Rev Hui reports.

Qatar National Bank has sold the largest ever dollar floating rate note Formosa bond — a $625m deal — as several other issuers from the region clamour for the attention of this Taiwanese bond market.

The fervour of expectation in the run up to this week’s US Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan meetings ended in widespread pain for foreign exchange, equity and derivative market participants.

StanChart veteran Lim retires — Lam given top China job at Citi — Citi India banker heads to HDFC Bank — BNP Paribas hires Ratliff for senior role

Samsung Biologics Co will send out a request for proposals next week for its 2016 IPO, expected to fetch over W3tr ($2.6bn), a source close to the situation told GlobalCapital Asia.