Asia Pacific

Asian leveraged finance bankers are having a busy year-end, with Chinese companies coming to the loan market for funds to support their acquisitions.

In this round-up, surging pork price drove China’s consumer price index (CPI) up again, new loans growth beats market expectation and the Mainland has revealed plans to shake up the country’s natural gas market.

Ping An Group subsidiary OneConnect Financial Technology has raised $312m from a listing of American Depository Shares (ADS) after trimming and then increasing its IPO.

Chinese property developer Hydoo International Holding has priced new notes as part of an exchange offer, issuing $193.5m of two year bonds that include around $82m of new money.

Chinese residential developer Zensun Group bagged $120m from a tap of its debut bond on Thursday, launching the deal on the back of plenty of anchor support.

For public sector issuers, niche currency deals have offered attractive opportunities for arbitrage funding, with spreads into euros and dollars spurring on demand this year. Meanwhile, strong investor appetite for green paper has seen niche shoots blossom throughout 2019. Frank Jackman reports

For several years, the green bond market has spread geographically, attracted new kinds of issuer and new assets — but structurally, it has remained stable. Now that is changing. The urgency of climate change has made swathes of the economy realise they must go green. New products — transition bonds and sustainability-linked bonds — have been devised to help. But as Jon Hay reports, they will not be easy for the market to digest

Markets go into 2020 fretting about a global recession and an escalation of tradetensions between the US and China, according to 25 heads of debt capital markets in the EMEA market, in Toby Fildes’ annual outlook survey. Respondents are mildly pessimistic on spreads and fees in the primary markets as well. But on the plus side, bankers are feeling hopeful about sustainability-themed bonds and almost unanimously believe issuance will top $270bn.

Equities are at record highs, rates at record lows; the US is quarrelling, China is slowing. As 2020 begins, participants are divided on which way markets will move. Toby Fildes picks 10 themes

Since the global financial crisis, central banks have accumulated powers over regulation and supervision of markets as well as over monetary policy. In 2019 politicians began to erode that with interventions that have raised questions over who should control markets. By Phil Thornton

We have more multilateral development banks than ever before. They perform an invaluable job in a challenging and ever-changing world, but as they expand, and as new MDBs emerge, a fear is growing that they are being used as political tools by sovereign shareholders, keen to promote their own interests around the world. By Elliot Wilson

I don’t often write rave tributes about high profile people but Paul Volcker warrants one this week.