Asia Pacific

In this round-up, US-China extended the previously planned two-day trade talk to a third day, Li Keqiang met Tesla’s Elon Musk, and the state council rolled out lower tax rates for small and low profit businesses.

China’s effort to deleverage and rebalance the economy will be tested in 2019 as corporate defaults rise, hidden local government debts surface, and liquidity for the private sector gets squeezed, according to a January 7 poll by S&P.

Chinese property manager Country Garden Services Holdings has pocketed HK$1.96bn ($249.9m) from a top-up placement of new shares.

In this round-up, China’s foreign exchange reserves rebounded slightly for the second month in a row, Standard Chartered’s index for international RMB usage fell again, and China's consumer price index (CPI) inflation decelerated at the close of 2018.

Tencent Holdings-backed Weimob raised HK$845m ($107.8m) after pricing its IPO at the bottom of the indicative range on Thursday, a bit behind the original schedule, according to a banker close to the deal.

Indonesian textile company Sri Rejeki Isman (Sritex) has returned to the syndications market for a $350m loan that will go partly towards a bond buy-back.

State Bank of India has lined up five firms to run its Rp200bn ($2.75bn) equity fundraising, set to be the country’s largest share sale.

Hopes of a thriving new market for securitizations by multilateral development banks hit a hole in the road in December, when the US Treasury said it disapproved of them and would seek to stop them.

That US president Donald Trump’s administration should pick a fight with the World Bank — and the bevy of other multilateral development banks the US owns shares in — is no surprise.

Cultured, guitar-playing capital markets banker who was widely seen as the best SSA originator in the business died on December 26. He was 48 and had been suffering from cancer.

Ireland is looking at the possibility of issuing its first ever benchmark inflation linked bond in 2019, amid an expected surge in the euro public sector linker market this year. Meanwhile, Portugal is waiting for the final approval of its inaugural Panda bond, which will be sold as part of an Rmb6bn three year programme.

Westpac issued the first dollar covered bond of the year this week, while its New Zealand subsidiary hit the euro market following the demand unearthed by an earlier deal from ANZ New Zealand.