Asia Pacific

Greater China issuers are eagerly turning to the international loan market again for funding, encouraged by low pricing and flush liquidity to refinance debt early and raise new money. But there are still many roadblocks, with banks cautious about predicting a quick recovery to pre-Covid levels. Pan Yue reports.

Investors put in a staggering $60bn of orders for an accelerated offering of Tencent Holdings’ stock on Wednesday, a deal that saw Dutch internet company Prosus taking home HK$114.17bn ($14.67bn) from a record-breaking overnight share sale. Jonathan Breen reports.

Hong Kong has now vaccinated half a million people, after rolling its vaccine out to all comers last month. There have been a few hiccups – the discovery of packaging defects caused a temporary halt to the AstraZeneca jab — but most people have now had the first of their required two shots.

Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) sold a subordinated perpetual bond in the Singapore dollar market this week, marking its return to the currency after more than a decade, as well as its first perp.

Trip.com Group has launched bookbuilding for its HK$10.5bn ($1.35bn) secondary listing in Hong Kong, testing investor appetite amid growing pains for the pandemic-hampered travel industry and as the performance of recent IPO debuts in the city fizzles.

Asia’s capital markets had a hot first quarter, with volumes soaring across both DCM and ECM. Momentum still appears strong — but market participants should brace themselves for a tough time ahead.

Redco Properties Group raised $220m on Wednesday from its first sustainability bond.

Singapore’s United Overseas Bank sold its debut sustainability bond on Wednesday, raising $1.5bn and notching a number of other firsts with its deal. Morgan Davis reports.

Iqbal Nasim, head of financial institutions at ICBC (London), will leave the bank in the middle of April to set up a desk at a smaller Asian lender.

Dutch internet company Prosus is looking to pocket up to HK$114.17bn ($14.67bn) from an accelerated sale of shares in Tencent Holdings.

Citi has appointed one of its senior Shanghai-based bankers as the new head of corporates coverage for China.

Indian real estate company Macrotech Developers has kicked off bookbuilding for its up to Rp25.1bn ($338.2m) listing.