Coronavirus

Indonesian palm oil producer Perkebunan Nusantara III (PTPN) is seeking consent from banks to delay payments on a dollar loan, given expectations of a hit to its business because of the Covid-19 pandemic. But bankers told GlobalCapital Asia this week that the state-owned company has enough cash to make the payments, with the syndicate team set to reject its deferral request. Pan Yue reports.

Zhongsheng Group Holdings tapped the equity-linked market for HK$4.56bn ($588.4m) this week to repurchase an outstanding convertible bond. The firm found strong demand from the usual sets of investors but also got new names looking for defensive opportunities. Jonathan Breen reports.

Central American sovereign Belize, which last restructured its international debt in 2017, is likely to seek to delay a $13m coupon payment due in August on its only external bond, believes Moody’s.

The International Monetary Fund is likely to approve a request from Chilean authorities for a two year flexible credit line (FCL) that the country’s central bank says is being sought “to reinforce the external position in a high risk external scenario”.

Airbus subsidiary Skytra has picked Nasdaq Clearing as the clearing house for its derivatives trading platform, which will offer airlines the ability to hedge revenue risk. With the industry in crisis, Skytra’s COO says there is more interest in the offering than ever.

A Sfr350m block trade in shares of Swiss software company SoftwareOne was priced quickly last night as investors rushed into the first equity capital markets deal in the company's stock since its 2019 IPO.

The largest investment banks are not planning on reopening London offices to large numbers of employees any time soon, but they are thinking about how to manage a safe return to work.

The IPO of Exasol, the German database analytics firm, has launched on the Frankfurt exchange in the same week as Pexip, the Norwegian video conferencing firm, priced its Nkr2.14bn ($206m) listing in Oslo following a fully electronic marketing process.

REC became the first Indian issuer in two months to hit the international bond market, raising $500m on Tuesday. While the deal was a success, it also shed some light on the restrictions and challenges being faced by the country’s issuers amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Grupo Energía de Bogotá (GEB), the Colombian electricity and gas distributor, tightened pricing sharply on a new 10 year deal as bankers reported huge appetite for the pick-ups being offered by the sturdiest investment grade EM companies.

The Bank of International Settlements has indicated that regulators may need to review central counterparty clearing house margin policies after the coronavirus crisis.

Companies that pay little tax have suffered worse share price declines during the coronavirus pandemic than the market as a whole — a result that suggests investors may at last be taking notice of this long ignored aspect of corporate governance.