Asia Pacific

Asia’s offshore bond market has ground to a halt. Global market volatility, driven by in part by geopolitical risk, has left borrowers on the sidelines, waiting for what will they hope will be a more stable market in September. In the meantime, the only sign of resilience in the region comes from China, where local banks can be leaned on to anchor deals. Morgan Davis reports.

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Geely and BNP Paribas’s auto finance joint venture hit the Chinese securitization market with a bang this week, as domestic investors oversubscribed for its single tranche sale by three times. The deal came a week before Mercedes is scheduled to launch a similarly structured transaction, its first in China this year.

Standard Chartered has rearranged its primary and secondary debt business, creating a global credit markets team that will be run by Henrik Raber, its long-time capital markets head.

It is all part of the daily routine for us bankers to make and receive lots of phone calls, among which there will be a few from journalists.

India’s Reliance Communcations (RCom) tender and exchange offer, unveiled last week, would clear the issuer’s books of its $300m 6.5% 2020 bond. But since RCom defaulted on a payment for the notes last November, it is in no position to offer investors such paltry tender and exchange terms.

Chinese companies BOC Aviation and Digital China have launched offshore loans into general syndication, seeking $500m and $100m, respectively.

India’s Tata Motors has closed the senior syndication of an offshore loan worth $237.6m, helping the company fund the buyback of bonds due in 2020.

BOC Aviation, the aircraft leasing group under Bank of China, has launched a $500m five year borrowing into general syndication, with a group of ten banks at the helm.

Geely and BNP Paribas’s auto finance joint venture hit the Chinese securitization market with a bang on Tuesday, as domestic investors oversubscribed its single tranche sale by three times. The deal came a week before Mercedes is scheduled to launch a similarly structured transaction, which will be its first in China this year.

Asia’s offshore bond market ran to a near stand-still this week, with just one issuer selling a dollar bond. While the typical summer lull is to blame for at least some of the quiet, bankers were divided on whether the crisis in Turkey has made things worse for Asian issuers.

An overnight sell-down in Malaysia’s RHB Bank raised MR609.9m ($148.9m) for its Middle Eastern shareholder on Tuesday. The deal finally went ahead after a period of election-related uncertainty.