Asia Pacific

Singapore Power, a government owned electricity and gas distributor, grabbed investor attention on Wednesday and raised $600m from a rare trip to the international bond market.

Chinese high yield borrowers have come to the market in droves this week. That continued on Wednesday, when three deals raised a total of $1.275bn.

Malaysia-based firm Top Glove Labuan tapped the equity-linked market for the first time on Wednesday, raising $200m after printing a five year non-call three exchangeable bond.

An investor protection deal between the EU and Singapore, approved by the European Parliament last week, would make sovereign debt restructurings harder for governments to manage, according to industry observers.

China Citic Bank International has priced a $500m Basel III-compliant tier two deal inside fair value, as the lender looks to switch out of a legacy tier two that not only has a high interest rate but has also lost most of its capital recognition over time.

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) made good on its promise to swap perpetual bonds for government bills on Wednesday, kicking off a Rmb1.5bn ($222m) swap that forced the central bank to start issuing bills again after a long hiatus.

China property names continued their bombardment of the dollar market on Tuesday, as four more bond issuers raised a combined total of $2bn.

Morgan Stanley has named Magnus Andersson as the co-head of ECM for Asia Pacific. His predecessor, Mille Cheng, has become vice chairman of Asia Pacific global capital markets.

Home Credit Vietnam has launched an up to $60m loan into general syndication after two year absence.

The UK banking sector has more links to China than the equivalent sectors in the US, Japan, the euro area and South Korea do combined. Analysts are warning that China's growth is slowing, and HSBC’s poor results have been linked to this. But those espousing that view are overstating the connection.

HSBC’s global banking and markets business increased its use of reserve repo and customer deposits for funding in 2018. But it endured a tough fourth quarter, with inflows from credit in its fixed income, currency and commodities (FICC) division sinking by 49.7%.

Chinese regulators have given the country’s biggest banks initial permission to set up wealth management arms, addressing a $3.2tr industry that inspires fear of shadow asset growth. But bankers admit they are still confused by exactly what the next steps will be.