Asia Pacific

Aluminium producer China Hongqiao Group has returned to the loan market for a $200m borrowing.

Zhihu, China’s largest question-and-answer platform, has set its New York Stock Exchange IPO in motion.

European equity capital markets continued to reel from volatility across the Atlantic on Friday. A sell-off in tech stocks is making the block trade market difficult and a popular IPO suffered on its first day of trading.

In this round-up, smaller Chinese firms see the slowest growth in manufacturing and services activity since mid-2020, the head of the Chinese banking and insurance regulator is wary of bubbles bursting in foreign markets, and the onshore sale of the so-called ‘carbon neutrality bonds’ moves from the interbank market to the smaller exchange market.

In this special round-up on China’s annual Two Sessions parliamentary meeting, the central government sets a conservative annual growth target for the Chinese economy in 2021, signals a modest tightening in fiscal and monetary policies, and plans to broaden regulatory oversight of the fintech sector.

Indian agrochemical firm UPL Corp has opened the country’s first sustainability-linked loan into syndication.

Ho Chi Minh City Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank has closed its debut offshore borrowing at $71m.

Sinic Service (Holdings) is gearing up for a listing in Hong Kong, adding further momentum to the IPO market of Chinese property management service providers.

A consortium led by Malaysia’s TTL Energy and Engie Asia Pacific, the regional arm of French energy firm Engie, has raised a RM342m ($84m) green loan to support the development of a solar plant in Malaysia.

Max Healthcare Institute, one of India’s largest hospital chain operators, is looking to raise up to Rp12bn ($164m) from a qualified institutional placement that was launched on Thursday.

Genius Auto Finance Co priced its first auto ABS outing of the year under the Generation series on Thursday. It sold the senior class A1 tranche of the Rmb4.7bn ($726.8m) transaction at a negative spread to the onshore pricing benchmark and inside a comparable trade from this week.

China Everbright Bank switched things up for its $550m deal this week, by opting for a fixed rate note rather than the floating rate bonds it has favoured more recently.