Asia Pacific

Indian specialist chemical producer Galaxy Surfactants closed books for its IPO on Wednesday and is set to raise Rp9.4bn ($146.9m) after the deal was multiple times covered by institutional investors.

The Indian government plans to merge three public sector general insurance companies into a single entity and float it on the stock exchange, finance minister Arun Jaitley said during the annual Union Budget on Thursday.

Asia’s equity-linked market joined in the sub-one year bond party this week, as issuers and investors both found something to like in the structure. Two Chinese property developers successfully priced nearly identical 363-day deals, though they had slightly different results in the aftermarket. John Loh reports.

China Evergrande Group attempted the largest Asian convertible bond in nearly two decades this week. But after investors baulked, the company pulled off one of the starkest changes of direction to a live deal GlobalCapital Asia has ever seen, relaunching with a new structure, a smaller deal size and a bigger bookrunning group, writes Jonathan Breen.

The first of China’s much-anticipated pipeline of technology-centric IPOs this year is starting to materialise.

How seriously should one take the so-called ‘Freudian slip’? Being a man with little time for psychology — and having a mother that could best be described as ‘sturdy’ — I’ve never put much stock in the ideas of that bewhiskered Austrian. But I did have to wonder this week when I poked my nose into a lunch organised by the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Credit Suisse’s Naqvi to step down – Nomura creates China IB role

Yunnan Provincial Energy Investment Group is out with its first borrowing in the international loan market.

Indian brokerage JM Financial is set to bag Rp6.5bn ($101.8m) from a qualified institutional placement with no discount to its market price, as investors jostled for the shares.

Chinese investors welcomed the first Panda bond issuer from the Middle East with caution this week. The government of the Emirate of Sharjah sold a Rmb2bn ($317.2m) three year bond in the upper half of the coupon range.

A green construction company in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia has expressed interest in selling a dollar green bond. But the deal will have to overcome damning revelations that the local government released false economic data.

Chinese issuers are continuing to circumvent regulatory approval for offshore fundraising by going down the short-term note issuance route, with Zhongtai Securities becoming the latest name to hit the market.