Citi

Chinese biotech firm Zai Lab has launched bookbuilding for a $105.9m IPO of American Depository Shares (ADS), and is counting on US investors favouring start-ups to support the deal.

China SCE Property Holdings scooped up HK$1.6bn ($204.5m) from an overnight block on Thursday that was timed to perfection, taking advantage of a share price rally to its highest point for the year.

Zai Lab is set to kick off roadshows on Tuesday for its $150m IPO on the Nasdaq, according to a banker leading the transaction.

Rating: Aaa/AAA

The European leveraged finance market is set to contend with loan deals approaching €4bn for the start of September. Over half of that is for the German pharmaceutical firm Stada — a deal that could help make funding more expensive for everyone else, writes Victor Jimenez.

Public sector issuers navigated a choppy start to the week to print strong dollar trades, but some SSA bankers worry that the problems that brought that early volatility are far from resolved.

With a GDP per capita of just $796, and foreign exchange reserves that cover just 9% of debt obligations, the Republic of Tajikistan cannot claim to be a frontier market, let alone an emerging market country. But that should be no obstacle as the Central Asian state approaches a bond market that has seen Belarus and Iraq raise debt with ease in recent months.

Best, a logistics firm backed by Alibaba, started pre-marketing its $1bn IPO on the New York Stock Exchange this week, as a clutch of Chinese issuers also filed listing applications in the US.

India's sale of stock in energy company NTPC was meant to be the largest on record this week, worth as much as Rp138.5bn ($2.2bn). But the deal missed the mark after a muted response from retail investors.

Kommunalbanken made what bankers away from the trade described as an “excellent” choice of tenor with a dollar benchmark on Wednesday as it tightened pricing from guidance — something that not every issuer has been able to achieve in the currency over the last two weeks. Meanwhile, a Japanese issuer mandated for a trade that bankers expect to go well despite geopolitical tensions in Asia.

The bookrunners on logistics company Best’s potential $1bn US IPO have kicked off pre-marketing, according to a banker working on the deal.

Julius Baer Group is planning to sell its first US dollar-denominated additional tier one (AT1) bond, and will visit Asia and Europe for a roadshow later this week.