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The Asian investment arm of French luxury firm LVMH is in the market for a $130m leveraged buyout loan. This is one of the region's few deals to test appetite for credits where the underlying target is in the fashion industry. Shruti Chaturvedi reports.

Asia’s debt capital markets show no sign of slowing down as the year end approaches, with recent deals proving that investors still have plenty of cash to deploy. Market participants expect at least one more high-profile deal to close in what is poised to be a record December, writes Rev Hui.

As I sit here nursing the pot belly I built up through marathon drinking sessions to impress clients over the years, I can’t help but feel some Schadenfreude about the hoops bankers have to jump through these days to win business.

Moody’s launched a public consultation this week as it seeks feedback over its proposed rating methodology for Chinese residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS).

The ECB’s increasingly heavy hints of its intentions have market players thinking that a cut to the deposit rate on December 3rd is almost a foregone conclusion.

A year after the European Central Bank started buying covered bonds for its third purchase programme (CBPP3), the pool of investors that buy eurozone covered bonds has dwindled. But this provides a unique opportunity for issuers ineligible for CBPP3. Canadian banks have brought a welcome injection of attractively priced paper that has engaged a broad audience. And with CBPP3 set to continue for at least another year, the outlook for inaugural deals from new countries is promising. Euro issuance from Singapore, Poland and Turkey should soon be offering investors a broad menu of credits, at potentially interesting spread levels.

What are the biggest risks facing sovereign credit in 2016? US rate hikes? A crisis in China? Another commodity shock? Have your say in GlobalCapital's sister publication, Euromoney's poll of sovereign risk factors for the year ahead.

Ford Auto Finance (China) is preparing for what is set to be the last auto ABS from China this year with the Rmb2.99bn ($469m) Fuyuan 2015-2 Retail Auto Mortgage Securitization due to go live on December 7.

The Ranger travelled through Germany to South Africa to glimpse some rare beasts on a loan market safari.

Chinese debt houses have gained market share this year thanks in no small part to the power of their balance sheets. While competitors have long criticised Chinese banks’ willingness to use capital to win a place on deals, there’s little reason to stop an approach that is clearly reaping rewards.

Policy makers and regulators don’t like risks, which is why they keep attempting the impossible — regulating them out of existence. The most recent example comes in the form of the European Commission’s Prospectus Directive III.

Around this time last year, I reviewed the dismal performance of the Hong Kong primary markets, and ventured a guess that investors could instead turn en masse to ECM transactions in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia - and even the Philippines. How wrong I was!