Greater China

Asia’s debt market is heading into March at full speed with seven issuers opening new deals on Monday. Borrowers need to be quick on their feet and act promptly over the next month to get their bonds past the finish line, said bankers in the region.

The Communist Party changes the constitution to allow Xi Jinping to serve a third term as president, banking watchdog standardises market entry rules for local and international banks, and China’s legislature approves a two-year extension for the registration-based IPO system.

Bright Scholar Education Holdings is out with its first follow-on offering since its IPO last May, and is gunning for about $200m.

Sunlands Online Education Group is planning an up to $300m IPO of American Depository Shares (ADS), according to a draft prospectus submitted to the US regulator on February 23.

Outstanding bonds issued by Vivat NV, the Dutch insurance group, suffered on Friday morning after its parent company Anbang Insurance Group was seized by Chinese authorities — but a sale to a European firm could provide an upside for bondholders.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) has released its long-awaited guidelines on dual-class shares, clearing the way for Chinese firms such as Alibaba Group Holdings to have a secondary listing in the city for the first time.

Redco Properties Group priced an opportunistic transaction on Thursday, raising a larger-than-expected $300m. Unlike some other 364-day deals, its transaction saw strong support from real money accounts.

Chinese leasing firm Far East Horizon was one of the first issuers to reopen the international bond market after a lull of more than a week, raising $300m from a dual-currency transaction on Thursday. But it was forced to pay up for the dollar portion due to lingering volatility in the market.

China is aligning itself with central banks around the world by giving the People’s Bank of China a leading role in regulating financial markets, Xu Zhong, head of the research bureau at the PBoC, has argued.

The China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) takes control of Anbang Insurance Group amid concerns over its finances, Fullerton Fund Management offers its first private fund in the onshore market, and the renminbi remains the fifth most used payments currency in January 2018.

The Republic of Turkey is preparing to issue its first Panda bond by the end of the year, having mandated three banks to handle the deal.

MUFG Securities Asia has named Royal Bank of Scotland veteran Pierre Ferland as its new chief executive.