Asia Pacific

Jingdong Hua has seen his fair share of crises. In Africa when the Rwandan genocide happened, in the Philippines when the Asian tsunami hit, in New York City when the twin towers fell on 9/11, he now finds himself in Washington, DC at one of the key institutions the world is desperately looking to to lead it out of the coronavirus crisis.

Bank of East Asia (BEA) sold the first Basel III compliant tier two dollar bond in Asia since the global outbreak of Covid-19. It raised $600m on the back of a book that was more than 8.5 times oversubscribed at its peak.

Two Singaporean companies, GuocoLand and Manulife US Real Estate Investment Trust, raised green loans this week.

In this special round-up on China’s annual Two Sessions parliamentary meeting, the government does not set a growth target for 2020 but raises the budget deficit to at least 3.6% of GDP. It also plans to issue Rmb1tr ($140bn) of special ‘anti-pandemic’ treasury bonds.

Taiwan-listed On-Bright Electronics is seeking a $206m loan to support its take private.

A group of lenders is targeting the family assets of Luckin Coffee chairman Lu Zhengyao to regain losses from more than $500m in margin loans.

In this round-up, China’s central bank leaves the benchmark loan prime rate (LPR) unchanged for May, the stock exchanges of Shanghai and Shenzhen will allow companies to sell bonds with maturities under one year, and fund manager Fidelity International is looking to break into the onshore mutual fund industry.

Hong Kong’s equity markets took a hit on Friday and sentiment soured among bond investors over news that China is considering enacting the national security law in Hong Kong. Bankers have described the possible impact as everything from a “death knell” to a “flash point” for the special administrative region’s markets.

Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional has pocketed MR735.7m ($168.6m) from the sale of a stake in Telekom Malaysia, after boosting the size of the trade.

China Southern Asset Management is in a strong position to capture opportunities in the Mainland’s rapidly growing equity fund market. The rising competition in this segment is only set to push it harder.

Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index made a historic change this week, allowing companies with weighted voting rights (WVRs) and secondary-listed shares on to the index.

Chinese IPOs in the US came under renewed pressure this week after the US Senate passed legislation that could ban mainland companies from its stock exchanges and the Nasdaq said it intends to tighten the screws on regulations around listings. Jonathan Breen reports.