Banks

WuXi AppTec’s Hong Kong IPO is set to be yet another test case of investor appetite for biotechnology names, as the company kicked off its chunky HK$7.5bn ($958m) flotation this week. With all eyes on the offering, its performance in both primary and secondary can have ramifications for other listing hopefuls in the city, writes Christie Ou.

VTB Capital has no interest in adopting blockchain technology for banking, said Dmitry Snesar, VTB’s head of client coverage, at VTB Capital’s Russia Calling conference in Moscow this week.

Shandong Iron & Steel Group, Excellence Commercial Properties and Sunshine 100 China Holdings completed their offshore fundraising exercises on Wednesday after announcing their deals with final price guidance.

German carmaker and Panda regular Daimler issued a Rmb4bn ($576m) two tranche private placement this week, ending its Panda issuance for 2018. The issuer kept its focus on a shorter-dated tranche, which made up the bulk of the offer.

Baidu-backed video streaming platform iQiyi opened bookbuilding for a $500m convertible bond on Wednesday after US markets closed.

Edgar Madinaveitia, a managing director in Latin American debt capital markets at Credit Suisse, has left the bank, according to sources away from the bank.

Bankers love to advise their clients to look at the bigger picture and print now, for fear that that in just a few weeks or months, they could be facing a much tougher time. So the chorus of DCM officials criticising Russia for its timing in selling a €1bn seven year bond this week is more than a little hypocritical.

High hopes for a bumper corporate finance year in Saudi Arabia have been dashed by the pulled Aramco IPO, the blockade of Qatar and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, writes David Rothnie.

The European Investment Bank changed up the coupon structure for its first floating rate note linked to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (Sofr) on Wednesday. But some onlooking bankers warned that different coupon structures could be “unhelpful” in the development of the new benchmark.

Borealis, the Austrian petrochemicals maker, sold its largest corporate bond tranche on Wednesday. The deal came two days after Austrian oil and gas company OMV, which owns more than a third of Borealis, had issued its own dual tranche deal.

Crédit Agricole came to what one banker called an "apathetic" market on Wednesday with a senior preferred issue from its new green bond framework, but did not have to offer a large premium to sell €1bn of notes.

UniCredit found a single investor willing to buy $3bn of its non-preferred senior notes at a coupon rate of 7.83% this week, as the bank pulled out all the stops in an effort to comply with its interim target for total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC).