Asia Pacific

Fantasia Holdings Group Co managed to take advantage of a stock market rebound that proved to be short-lived on Thursday, raising $300m from a 364-day trade. The company has around $1.6bn of onshore and offshore bonds maturing in the coming months, but managed to convince investors it has a plan to deal with this looming maturity risk.

Hong Kong’s markets regulator has sounded off another warning on cryptocurrencies, taking action against a number of exchanges and issuers of initial coin offerings (ICOs).

Indian state-owned Canara Bank is looking to raise up to Rp45bn in fresh capital. It increased the target by Rp10bn this week and plans to use methods including a qualified institutional placement and rights issue.

South Korean firm Aekyung Industry Co is preparing to launch an IPO that could be up to W231.9bn ($213.3m), according to filing with the Korean market regulator on Thursday.

Eva Zhong, who ran Credit Suisse’s equity-linked business in Asia, is rejoining Morgan Stanley to take up a senior equity capital markets role, sources close to the move said.

The People’s Bank of China eyes bond market reforms, China’s FX reserves stand at $3.16tr after another month of growth, and Cambodia moves closer to replacing the dollar with the renminbi for trades with China.

RusHydro, the Russian hydroelectric power generator, issued the first local currency Eurobond of 2018 with a three year note on Thursday. Bond bankers said that internationally cleared local currency bonds would gain increasing traction this year.

The viability of short volatility strategies in derivatives markets was dealt a severe blow this week, after a historic spike in equity volatility torpedoed popular exchange traded notes. Costas Mourselas reports.

Leverage finance bankers are bracing themselves for a rise in mezzanine financing in Asia, buoyed by talk that part of the HK$32bn loan to back a record-breaking Hong Kong property deal will be financed with junior debt.

Asian stocks added to the rout in global equity markets this week, putting a speed bump in front of the frenetic pace of primary activity. But deals continued to get done through the worst of the selldown, as equity bankers argued that the sell-off was a healthy, and temporary, correction. John Loh reports.

Stock market volatility quickly spread to bonds this week, bringing Asia’s dollar bond market to a near standstill. The hold-up has started to ease and issuers are preparing deals again, but the blip has created a backlog of bond issues that will flood the market after Chinese New Year. Morgan Davis reports.

GLP has raised Rmb1.2bn ($191m) from a nine year Panda bond on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The size of the Belt and Road branded deal was expanded, surprising some in the market.