China

The pipeline of Asian IPOs headed for the US is shaping up for September, with the latest crop of issuers all starting to drum up investor interest.

China’s peer-to-peer lenders are once again staring into the abyss, following a string of recent scandals and a new crackdown by regulators. As the noose tightens around the sector, IPO-hopefuls like Weidai should tread with caution.

One year after selling its first Panda bond, China Everbright Water came back on August 15 to sell two tranches with identical structures but marketed one of them as a green bond. Investors showed little passion for the tag, however, with the green tranche pricing slightly wider than the other.

German carmaker Daimler came back to the Panda bond market to raise Rmb4bn ($582m) last Thursday, marking its third outing in the asset class in 2018. The issuer shifted its focus to the shorter-dated tranche, which made up 75% of the offer.

Hangzhou Jianggan District Urban Construction and Comprehensive Development Co has raised $200m from a bond, shrugging off news from last week that a Xinjiang local government financing vehicle (LGFV) had unexpectedly missed payments on a renminbi note.

Tianqi Lithium is turning to equity investors after making a debt-fuelled play for its Chilean rival, in an acquisition that pressured its ratings and threatened to rob it of investment grade status.

Singapore Telecommunications and a Hangzhou local government financing vehicle both hit the dollar bond market on Monday, already putting Asia’s debt market ahead of the one dollar issuance last week. But bankers say there is little more to come.

Chailease International Finance Corp is turning to the loans market for an up to $250m borrowing, just a few months after sealing renminbi-denominated and Japanese yen facilities.

Tencent Holdings-backed Qutoutiao has filed draft documents for a Nasdaq IPO, with plans to raise up to $300m.

Bank of China becomes the RMB clearing bank for a financial centre in Malaysia, a Chinese credit rating agency is in trouble with two regulators after breaching rules in the exchange and interbank bond markets, and the People’s Bank of China reportedly blocks RMB flowing out of free trade zones (FTZs).

Dagong Global Credit Rating, one of China’s largest credit rating agencies, has been banned from rating bonds in the interbank market for one year because it was providing consulting services to companies as it was rating them, the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (Nafmii) announced today.

The asset management arm of JP Morgan targets the private fund market in the mainland, China downsizes holdings of US Treasuries in June, and the Singapore Exchange (SGX) sets a new single-day trading record for USDCNH futures contracts.