Asia Pacific

The Hang Seng Index’s appalling start to the new year has made ECM bankers and investors ultra-cautious about the market, and most participants are taking a wait-and-see approach. Christie Ou reports.

Is pricing in the Asian loan syndications market finally bottoming out? All the signs for an uptick in margins this year are there, writes Pan Yue.

Two senior Morgan Stanley bankers are set to retire from the US investment bank this year.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has ordered all the stock exchanges under its supervision to move cash-settled equity derivatives contracts to physically settled forms.

Considerably cheap valuations have made Weimob, a Tencent Holdings-backed company that is on the road with its Hong Kong IPO, an attractive proposition for equity investors, according to a source close to the listing.

In the first round-up of 2019, China’s economy slowed further in December, renminbi-denominated central bank reserves fell in the third quarter of last year, and the US and China exchanged some positive signals on trade.

Futu Holdings, parent of Hong Kong-based Futu Securities International, is planning a Nasdaq IPO of up to $300m.

CIMC Vehicles Co is eyeing $500m from a Hong Kong IPO, with plans to launch the listing by the end of the first quarter, according to a source close to the deal.

Asian issuers are setting the stage for their fundraisings nice and early into the New Year, with South Korea’s Hanwha Total Petrochemical Co announcing a bond mandate on Wednesday morning.

Bank of the Lao PDR is taking commitments for a $100m four year borrowing in general syndication, offering lenders terms that are identical to its last offshore facility from 2015.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has unveiled the latest plank of its highly unusual approach to bank capital regulation. Under the proposed changes, the four large subsidiaries of Australian banks that operate in the country will have to raise billions of tier one capital and will be able to rely on loss-absorbing debt instruments far less than peers in other jurisdictions.

Q3 Medical Devices is looking to raise around €125m ($142m) through an IPO in Hong Kong, according to a release.