Asia Pacific

The terrible earthquake and tsunami that hit Indonesia’s Sulawesi island last month has served as a wake-up call for the country’s Ministry of Finance, which is now looking at issuing catastrophe bonds.

Standard Chartered’s RMB internationalisation index hit a nearly two-year high, State Street entered the RMB qualified foreign institutional with a splash, and index provider IHS Markit partnered with a Chinese clearinghouse for a new set of bond indices.

IMF data shows the renminbi saw a nearly 40% jump in global foreign exchange reserves in Q2, the US Treasury introduced interim rules to monitor Chinese investment in US firms, and the US Treasury is also likely set to name China a currency manipulator as early as next week.

China Fortune Land Development Co added $70m to its existing 2020 bonds in a quick tap this week.

Thailand Future Fund hit screens on Friday, with a set of cornerstone investors looking to help get its Bt44.7bn ($1.4bn) IPO across the line.

The Ministry of Finance (MoF) second offshore RMB (CNH) auction in 2018 raised Rmb5bn ($720m) on Wednesday. Despite recent RMB depreciation, the demand for CNH bonds remains, albeit in modest amounts.

A sharp sell-off in US equities on Wednesday led to global panic on Thursday as other indices followed suit. Asian and European markets showed some sign of life on Friday, although were still a long way down, but the ramifications of a change in risk sentiment could have lasting effects across capital markets, write Sam Kerr, Ross Lancaster, Costas Mourselas, Craig McGlashan and Aidan Gregory.

World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim plans to take the new Human Capital Index he launched on Thursday to Davos in the new year, where he will urge CEOs of companies in lagging countries to invest in health and education.

Pledges by leading banks to pull back from financing “dirty” projects such as coal will be meaningless unless governments step in with regulations to prevent other investors taking their place, a senior banker has said.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) has mandated leads to roadshow the first ever Japanese covered bond. The RMBS-backed deal is expected to appeal to a broad universe of traditional investors and will set the tone for Japanese megabanks and other borrowers in what could be a rich supply vein for covered bond investors.

Dafa Properties Group raised HK$840m ($107.2m) when it priced a Hong Kong IPO a few cents above the middle of the marketed range this week.

China’s Niu Technologies has launched bookbuilding for a $103.8m Nasdaq IPO, but despite plenty of pre-deal interest, sources said they did not expect the trade to be a blowout.