Asia Pacific

Asia’s dollar bond market started Monday on a positive note despite investors having to navigate some surprising news from Japan and the US last week.

Bottled water and beverage company Nongfu Spring has taken advantage of a flood of demand from institutional and retail investors for its Hong Kong IPO to price the HK$8.35bn ($1.08bn) deal at the top of guidance.

Yum China Holdings, a fast food restaurant franchiser, launched the roadshow for its secondary listing in Hong Kong on Monday to strong early momentum from investors.

In this round-up, China’s official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for August misses expectations by a small margin, BlackRock becomes the first global asset manager to enter the mutual fund industry onshore, and the sale of TikTok’s US operations faces new challenges as Beijing tightens technology export controls.

The administrator of Peking University Founder Group’s debt has decided not to recognise the dollar bonds that came with a keepwell deed and deed of equity interest purchase undertaking, a move that can have a ‘major impact’ on the region’s debt market.

In this round-up, senior trade officials from China and the US hold ‘constructive’ talks, the securities regulator publishes the latest ratings for Mainland brokerages, and the Shenzhen exchange hopes to attract listings from companies with weighted voting rights (WVR).

Antengene Corp, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, has set the ball rolling for a Hong Kong IPO, adding to a bulging pipeline of healthcare firms targeting the city’s bourse.

Credit Suisse has appointed Allan Chu as its new head of technology, media and telecom (TMT) for Asia Pacific, succeeding Alain Lam, who has moved to Chinese technology company Xiaomi Corp.

Emperor International Holdings snapped up $250m on Thursday from a new bond that included an exchange for its outstanding 2021 notes.

Property company HongKong Land has converted a HK$1bn ($129m) revolving credit facility received from DBS this February into a sustainability-linked loan.

ABC International Holdings took advantage of receptive market conditions to make a rapid return to the bond market this week.

Chinese smart electric vehicle maker Nio has launched an accelerated follow-on offering, riding on the strong support seen for the US listings of its competitors in the past month.