China

Former Bank of China syndicate head Sebastian Ha has joined SPDB International as its head of fixed income.

Property companies in Greater China raised more than $6bn from the bond market this week, sparking fears of indigestion.

China Fortune Land Development tapped the bond market with a $530m two year deal, generating a final order book that was almost 10 times covered as it attempts to draw a line under a difficult 2018.

In this round-up, trade talks continued in Washington DC on Thursday and Friday, Greater Bay Area development plans focused on Belt and Road and RMB internationalisation and Norman Chan announced his retirement from the HKMA.

In this round-up, Malaysia's finance minister said his country may sell a Panda bond, the HKMA and the PBOC are working on cross-border mobile payments and Chinese issuers raised $8bn from the offshore market.

China Construction Bank (CCB) and China Citic Bank International this week priced Basel III-compliant tier two deals, raising $2.35bn between them. The deals represent only the latest supply from Asia’s bank capital market, which is gearing up for a busy year. Addison Gong reports.

China’s Fujian Yango Group Co this week set out a dramatic rise in the coupon on an outstanding bond, in a bid to avoid an investor put in April. The move left market participants confused, with one calling it ‘very odd’.

Chinese high yield borrowers have come to the market in droves this week. That continued on Wednesday, when three deals raised a total of $1.275bn.

China Citic Bank International has priced a $500m Basel III-compliant tier two deal inside fair value, as the lender looks to switch out of a legacy tier two that not only has a high interest rate but has also lost most of its capital recognition over time.

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) made good on its promise to swap perpetual bonds for government bills on Wednesday, kicking off a Rmb1.5bn ($222m) swap that forced the central bank to start issuing bills again after a long hiatus.

China property names continued their bombardment of the dollar market on Tuesday, as four more bond issuers raised a combined total of $2bn.

The UK banking sector has more links to China than the equivalent sectors in the US, Japan, the euro area and South Korea do combined. Analysts are warning that China's growth is slowing, and HSBC’s poor results have been linked to this. But those espousing that view are overstating the connection.