Free content

Few bankers, if any, will emerge from the coronavirus unaffected. But leveraged finance bankers have reason to believe they will be able to generate new deals from the chaos — even if they lose a few old ones along the way. Pan Yue reports.

Asia’s bond market has remained reasonably resilient amid the Covid-19 pandemic, despite a big fall in deal flow. Indonesia's Hutama Karya showed just how strong the market can be, when it sold its debut dollar bond.

More and more Chinese issuers are using the Covid-19 pandemic as a convenient excuse to justify missed or delayed payments of bonds. The trend needs to stop.

In this round-up, the Chinese banking and insurance regulator fines three commercial lenders, the People’s Bank of China reviews the implementation of its monetary policy in the first quarter, and the pace of local governments selling bonds moderates in April.

In this round-up, China’s foreign exchange reserves see an unexpected rise last month, export data improves but imports drop, and the central bank is planning to issue three month and one year renminbi bills in Hong Kong next week.

In this round-up, the US refuses to back down from accusing China of covering up the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic, but despite the rising tensions, top trade officials from the countries spoke on Friday morning.

There is a huge amount of information to take in at the best of times in the capital markets. During a crisis, it can be overwhelming. So, each week, Keeping Tabs brings you the very best of what we in the GlobalCapital newsroom have found most useful, interesting and informative from around the web.

GlobalCapital and Standard Chartered hosted a virtual roundtable in mid-April to discuss the changes China's high yield issuers have faced in 2020 — and the challenges they will have to contend with for the rest of the year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Capital markets have not seized up when mediated through the home office. But with remote working set to be the norm for the foreseeable future, the finance industry must be alert to less perceptible problems.

John Davidson is CEO of the Options Clearing Corporation, the equity derivatives clearing house. GlobalCapital caught up with him to discuss how clearing has held up in the Covid-19 crisis — during which equity markets endured huge volatility — and how he is planning for the return from lockdown.

Martin McKinney, senior manager of medium-term funding at Santander UK, speaks to GlobalCapital about the impact the UK’s lockdown on the bank’s balance sheet, central bank liquidity, and the bank’s changing mix of regulatory and pure funding.

The Indian equity capital market needs all the help it can get amid disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The securities regulator has already loosened some rules, but it needs to go further and relax guidelines around one of issuers’ most preferred fundraising avenues — the qualified institutional placement (QIP).