Greater China

Canadian investors may gain a direct route into China’s interbank bond market thanks to a collaboration between TMX Group and Shanghai Clearing House (SHCH) that is set to kick off by the last quarter of the year, TMX's Brian Gelfand told GlobalRMB.

China’s FX reserves grow for a third consecutive month in April, the head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (Safe) says China will not devalue renminbi, and HKEX plans to launch CNH and USD gold futures.

The Asian G3 debt market opened on Monday with two deals from financial names and a mandate, in addition to two launches from corporates, following the positive sentiment overnight from the French presidential election.

A HK$28bn ($3.6bn) financing to support the take private of Hong Kong-listed footwear company Belle International Holdings is open for participation at the sub-underwriter level.

A member of the loan syndications team at Standard Chartered in Hong Kong has left the bank for personal reasons.

Huachen Energy Co is prepping investors for its inaugural appearance in the international bond market, meeting fixed income accounts next week.

Bank of China’s Singapore branch raised $600m from a three year floating rate bond on Thursday, marking the lender’s second issuance this year supporting the Chinese government’s Belt and Road initiative.

In this week’s round-up, Fidelity’s Shanghai-based wholly foreign-owned enterprise (WFOE) launches its first private fund, only two foreign investors were given qualified foreign institutional investor and RMB QFII quotas in April, and the dim sum bond market continued its decline in the first quarter.

Guangzhou Rural Commercial Bank Co will drum up interest for its $1bn Hong Kong IPO next week, said bankers on the trade.

In the latest Clawback, columnist Philippe Espinasse turns his focus to the listing of infrastructure project companies in Hong Kong, saying that IPOs of Belt and Road issuers could be a big challenge.

BoCom International Holdings Co has opened books for its HK$2.1bn ($265.6m) IPO in Hong Kong via a 14 member syndicate, with nearly a third of the shares snapped up by cornerstone investors.

Ant Financial subsidiary Alipay (Hong Kong) Holding will increase the size of its $3bn loan, taken to partly support its bid to acquire Dallas-based MoneyGram, according to bankers. The news comes about a fortnight after Alipay raised its offer for MoneyGram by around $300m.