Asia Pacific

Khazanah Nasional took a huge step forward for socially responsible investment (SRI) in Malaysia this month with the country’s first sukuk in the sector, adopting a unique structure that could see investors’ pay-out reduced. It is a bold move for social reform, but Khazanah’s SRI sukuk may be a bit too ahead of its time.

Standard Chartered's proprietary RMB Globalisation Index (RGI) fell by 0.8% month-on-month in April, the first drop since October 2012, on the back of slowing cross border RMB payments. However, a pick-up in offshore RMB bond issuance and improving RMB liquidity should turn things around, according to the bank.

China's currency is growing rapidly as a means of trade settlement, but its struggle for global acceptance has as much to do with market share as with perception, according to academics participating in a public seminar on China's financial future.

Chinese regulators are set to announce relaxations on Panda bond issuance in September to ensure that corporate and financial issuers are more able to tap the market, according to Jane Jiang, head of the China regulatory group at law firm Allen & Overy.

Bank of China (BoC) Taipei Branch is marketing a multi-tranche Formosa bond, and will be pricing the deal as early as today (June 8), sources have told GlobalRMB. The deal will include a 15 year tranche, the longest tenor ever for an RMB-denominated bond in Taiwan.

In this round-up, Hong Kong deposits rose in April, but cross-border RMB trade settlement fell, Macau announced its March deposit figures, ICBC opened two new offshore branches in Montreal and Riyadh, RMB clearing in South Korea has reached a daily average of Rmb25bn, and Japanese bank MUFG helped Brazilian clients settle trade with China in RMB.

BMW, which recently issued an auto ABS off its European platform, has mandated Citic Securities as the sole lead underwriter for its first auto ABS of the year.

Export-Import Bank of Korea (Kexim) has closed books on three year note, raking in Rmb1.25bn ($201m) from the dim sum offering. The deal, which was driven by reverse enquiry, hit the market on a busy day but managed to raise more than planned.

Investors piled into the first offshore renminbi bond from Lenovo Group, keen to get their hands on some rare corporate supply. The strong response allowed the borrower to upsize the five year offering to Rmb4bn ($645m), equalling the record for the largest corporate dim sum bond.

Asset manager Vanguard is allowing a twelve-month transition for its funds to reflect the FTSE Emerging Markets Index’s new weighting of China’s A-shares, the company told GlobalRMB.

Global asset manager Vanguard has followed up the decision by FTSE Russell to begin including Chinese A-shares in its emerging markets indices with an announcement on June 2 that it will give A-shares an initial 5.6% weighting in its Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund.

The dim sum bond market is set to welcome a new name with technology giant Lenovo Group opening books to an up to Rmb3.5bn ($574m) offering on June 3.