Asia Pacific

HSBC has poached a senior banker from Citi to run banking in its Americas business.

Chinese property developer Country Garden has closed a $1.5bn-equivalent dual currency loan, attracting seven participants during syndication.

Dual recourse structures have become increasingly popular in India after last year’s debut from Kogta Finance. And with the sanctity of bankruptcy remoteness successfully tested in the courts, sentiment towards such structures has improved further. This could help pave the way for a national champion bank to test appetite for Indian covered bonds, which would offer the country's lenders a source of long-term diversified funding that they can't get from deposits.

The theory of nominative determinism states that people tend to take jobs that fit their names: John Baker becomes a baker, Ted Milk becomes a dairy farmer, Fakey McBlowhard becomes a politician. But there are also names that are valuable, not so much because they affect your career choices but because there’s a good chance you might get confused for someone else.

China’s Ant Group kicked off marketing for its Hong Kong and Shanghai dual listing on Thursday, the last stage before launching a possible $35bn IPO, set to be the world’s largest to date. The combined offering is already more than a third covered by onshore investors, with global buyers lining up for the rest. Addison Gong and Jonathan Breen report.

Hong Kong’s securities watchdog has fined Goldman Sachs $350m for regulatory failures in its work on bonds issued by the scandal-hit Malaysian state investment fund 1MDB, part of a multi-billion-dollar settlement with global regulators.

Agricultural Development Bank of China returned to the offshore renminbi market this week with a Rmb5.7bn ($854m) triple-tranche transaction. The deal featured a rare 10 year tenor in the dim sum market, showing the potential for more long-dated CNH funding. Addison Gong reports.

Meituan, a Chinese e-commerce platform and food delivery company, sold its first dollar bond on Wednesday, netting $2bn on the back of an order book that reached $16bn at its peak.

Asia’s dollar bond market has seen a big bump up in volumes this month, as issuers rush to get ahead of the US presidential elections and take advantage of still supportive markets. DCM bankers are expecting a much quieter year end — but they admit anything can happen. Morgan Davis reports.

Leveraged finance bankers coping with a slump in deal flow in Asia this year are gearing up for a bumper start to 2021, as a return of liquidity and growing interest from institutional investors for loans set the stage for a market revival. Pan Yue reports.

JW (Cayman) Therapeutics set its IPO in motion on Thursday, opening the order book for the up to HK$2.3bn ($300m) deal.

United Overseas Bank achieved the tightest spread for a five year floating rate bank issue in Australian dollars in over 10 years this week, issuing A$750m ($532.0m) to prove that there is still demand at decade-low levels.