Asia Pacific

The Province of British Columbia (BC) has mandated Bank of China and HSBC as joint leads for its debut Panda bond, Mike de Jong, BC’s Minister of Finance, told GlobalRMB. The deal is expected to launch in January and will be the first Panda from a sovereign credit.

Moody’s launched a public consultation this week as it seeks feedback over its proposed rating methodology for Chinese residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS).

BPCE issued final guidance on Thursday for its latest multi-tranche Samurai sale, giving investors plenty of choice with two senior and three subordinated tranches.

The Province of British Columbia (BC) has mandated Bank of China and HSBC as joint leads for its debut Panda bond, Michael de Jong, BC’s Minister of Finance, told GlobalRMB. The deal is expected to launch in January and will be the first Panda from a sovereign credit.

Investors poured into Tianjin Free Trade Zone Investment Holding Group’s (Tianjin FTZ) debut dollar bond this week, helping the state-owned company raise $500m with a more than seven times covered order book.

Standard Chartered (StanChart) has cut its Americas and Europe RMB solutions teams in recent months, according to a source. The bank has recently begun a global restructuring process.

Tsinghua Unigroup started taking bids for a dual-tranche dollar offering on Thursday, which if printed would be the first offshore bond from the issuer.

The Australian dollar market, a popular funding pool for SSAs, will require a pragmatic approach in terms of price expectations next year, said senior SSA bankers.

A symbolic rather than market changing move is the general view of the renminbi’s inclusion into IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket. However, many analysts believe impact could be profound if China is willing to take the real test reforming its domestic financial markets.

Australian covered bonds, which offer among the widest spreads for the high credit quality, have been better bid in the secondary market over the past two weeks, but on Wednesday buying interest was reported further out along the curve. The news comes after Fitch and Moody’s published relatively upbeat assessments of the Australian and New Zealand covered bond markets.

A debt capital markets banker at Morgan Stanley has left to join Mizuho International, GlobalCapital understands.

China Tian Lun Gas Holdings has increased the size of its loan to $250m from the launch size of $150m as strong demand from banks led to an oversubscription.