Asia Pacific

Fitch has downgraded Malaysia for the first time since the Asian financial crisis, slashing the sovereign rating by one notch to BBB+ due to the Covid-19 crisis and political uncertainty.

Vesync, a home appliance retailer, kicked off the roadshow for its up to HK$1.55bn ($200.1m) IPO in Hong Kong on Monday, with the company's growth story during the pandemic expected to appeal to investors.

In this round-up, China posts stronger-than-expected export data for November, the banking and insurance regulator fines Bank of China over ‘irregularities’ in a crude oil product, and an Ant Group unit and a Greenland-led consortium win digital banking licences.

Beijing Construction Engineering Group has received strong response from the market for its second loan of the year. The $350m deal is expected to be signed before the end of December.

Dada Nexus, which operates on-demand retail and delivery platforms in China, raised $450m this week after selling a chunk of new equity.

In this round-up, China unveils guidelines to assess its domestic systemically important banks, both the November Caixin China manufacturing and general services Purchasing Managers’ Indexes beat expectations, and the US House of Representatives waves through a bill that could delist Chinese companies from its stock exchanges.

Medical device maker LifeTech Scientific Corp tapped the Hong Kong market for HK$930m ($120m) in fresh equity on Thursday.

E-House (China) Enterprise Holdings was the only issuer in the dollar bond market in Asia on Thursday, raising $200m.

Blue Moon Group, a Chinese detergent maker, saw the book for its up to HK$9.8bn ($1.3bn) IPO covered within hours of opening on Friday.

Indonesian textile products manufacturer Sri Rejeki Isman, better known as Sritex, is planning to extend a dollar loan closed in 2019 by two years.

BPCE incorporated a call option into one of its Samurai deals for the first time on Thursday, when it raised about $430m equivalent of non-preferred senior paper, including one social leg.

Credit Suisse took advantage of a ferocious rally in subordinated debt to land its lowest ever coupon for an additional tier one (AT1) in dollars this week. The deal was also the Swiss bank’s debut use of Sofr to hedge interest rate risk on new issuance.