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Those watching Zambia bonds might think that the $1.25bn deal this week yielding 9.375% demonstrates a borrower on the ropes considering in 2012 it paid a coupon of 5.375% for its debut bond. In fact, this is a borrower showing smarts when the rest of the CEEMEA gang appear to have bottled it.

The Chinese stock market’s rapid plunge into bear territory this month has brought unexpected gains for the equity capital markets of another large emerging economy — India. ECM bankers in that country have started to see a big uptick in interest from international investors eager to park their funds in a safe haven, writes Rashmi Kumar.

Bank of Communications managed to pull off a super-aggressive trade this week, pricing its $2.45bn additional tier one (AT1) offering in line with its larger peers Bank of China (BoC) and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC). The key to that impressive feat was taking advantage of an investor base that had been starved of bank capital paper as well as higher yielding products, writes Rev Hui.

Bharti Airtel is reported to be eyeing a $1bn syndicated loan to fund its acquisition of telecoms spectrum in India. Bankers are hoping the deal is not the last from the country’s telco majors, which have so far failed to come offshore for funding since the spectrum auction earlier this year, writes Shruti Chaturvedi.

A good friend of mine recently invited me on a "business trip" to review a prospective client’s operations, conveniently located in one of southeast Asia’s most picturesque countries.

VTB's huge multi-tranche tender offer makes financial sense, but also demonstrates the pessimistic outlook for Russian growth at one of Russia’s biggest corporate lenders, despite this year’s rally in the country’s bonds.

The UK’s conduct regulator may have lost its boss, but it’s still going from strength to strength, despite having less reason than ever before to exist at all.

The unusual execution of some recent Chinese euro deals might not be everyone’s cup of tea, especially those participants who like to preach best market practices. But the doomsayers should not be so quick to condemn. What the Chinese have shown is the type of flexibility that is needed to get deals done.

Changes to the rules for valuing bank assets will blast a hole in bank capital in a change which would be “bigger than Basel”, and could leave some institutions with negative equity.

The bursting of China’s stock market bubble last week rattled investors, with Asian bourses feeling a contagion effect from the mainland’s collapse. As indices begin to steady, ECM bankers in Hong Kong are adamant the market is open for business, but discussions with potential issuers on pricing and timing are taking centre stage, writes Rashmi Kumar.

Primary deals are once again flowing in Asia ex-Japan amid a gradual untangling of the Greek debt crisis and an improving Chinese equities market. But even with the worst apparently behind them, market participants in the region are predicting issuance to be stop-start and dominated by investment grade credits as they prepare for the second half of the year, writes Rev Hui.

Inevitably much of the talk with my pals this week has been about the guy from GSElevator as the newspapers are filled with excerpts of his book, especially his time in Hong Kong.