Asia Pacific

Oil and gas giant China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec) opened books for a 144A/Reg S triple-tranche dollar offering on Monday, taking advantage of a buoyant primary Asian bond market.

China is moving forward with plans to open an international bond marketplace in the Shanghai free trade zone (FTZ), with sources telling GlobalRMB that Euroclear is set to link the onshore platform with offshore investors. Separately, plans by competitor Clearstream to help global investors gain standardised access to the China interbank bond market (CIBM) are slated for an October launch.

India’s third largest private lender Axis Bank has wrapped up its latest, self-arranged loan at $300m.

Telecommunication giant Vodafone has invited banks to pitch for the IPO of its Indian arm, which could raise up to $2.5bn. It is likely to name the line up as soon as early May, sources with knowledge of the situation told GlobalCapital Asia.

Ping An Real Estate Capital, a subsidiary of Ping An Insurance Group, has received enough commitments to increase the size of its $200m loan, said sources.

A pair of investment grade issuers, Maybank and JD.com, ventured into the dollar bond market on Friday albeit with quite different trades.

Hongkong Electric has made a successful comeback to the bond market after an absence of more than five years. Thanks to its status as a premium and a rare credit, the company reeled in investors and priced the trade well inside fair value.

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan is seeking comments on its draft Public Offering of Securities Rules 2016 in a bid to tighten regulation on equity and debt issuance.

Indian micro-finance lender Ujjivan Financial Services has set the price range for its potential Rp8.8bn ($132.3m) float, which will launch on April 28.

Coal miner China Unienergy Group is looking to join the stream of Chinese companies floating in Hong Kong, filing a draft prospectus for an IPO that could launch this quarter, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.

BNP Paribas and S&P Dow Jones Indices (SPDJI) launched a new index focusing on what it calls the “new China” economic sectors. A-shares, which could be included later this year in the MSCI emerging markets indices, make up a quarter of the new benchmark.

BAIC Motor Corp did not have the smoothest of rides for its green bond debut this week and was forced to extend bookbuilding to push the deal through.