Asia Pacific

Hong Kong has been my home for two decades, and there is so much I love about it — its vibrancy, the food, the people, and above all, the low tax rates.

Syndicate bankers are scrambling to make sense of the covered bond market, where sentiment has been changeable in recent weeks. Amid volatility and small issuance windows, sustainable bonds have proven a safe strategy to ensure successful deals.

Hong Kong’s IPO market had one of its busiest periods in years this week, with more than 10 live deals vying for investor attention. But bankers in the city are concerned by the ECM market’s dislocation with the social, political and economic backdrop. Jonathan Breen reports.

An Indonesian palm oil company has become the latest to fall victim to rising worries among loans bankers about government support. The company missed a payment last week, after bankers rejected an earlier covenant waiver request. Pan Yue reports.

Chinese social media platform Weibo Corp returned to the dollar market on Tuesday with a 10 year bond.

A long-running attempt by Chinese oil company Hilong Holding to complete an exchange offer on a dollar bond has failed, after it confirmed a default this week. The situation has caused analysts to speculate on how it could have executed its deal better. Alice Huang reports.

The Republic of Indonesia returned to the yen market this week for its annual Samurai bond outing, raising ¥100bn ($930m).

Chinese policy makers have finalised rules on how to deal with corporate bond defaults, with the regulation to go into effect next month.

Berlin Hyp left ‘a little bit on the table’ with its new green covered bond on Tuesday. The trade was followed by deal announcements from Kookmin Bank and Sparebank Vest Boligkreditt, both looking to issue in sustainable format.

UBS has created a new corporate finance group within the Greater China team that will mainly focus on the execution of IPOs, according to an internal memo seen by GlobalCapital Asia.

BMW Automotive Finance, a frequent issuer in China’s onshore auto ABS market, is gearing up for its second securitization deal of the year. This time around, the German automaker has shortened the usual one year revolving portion to just a month.

Asian supply chains are facing unprecedented disruption. Banks in the region should take notice.