Greater China

Renminbi depreciation has been one of the market's most talked about issues with many predicting the trend to continue well into 2017. But ICBC Asia’s co-head of global markets Jimmy Jim told GlobalRMB that such fears are overblown and he believes the renminbi is maturing into a two-way fluctuating currency.

Minsheng Education Group Co rapidly covered books for its Hong Kong IPO, which was launched on Wednesday and is expected to raise up to HK$1.5bn ($195.7m), according to a source close to the deal.

Citi and Bloomberg Barclays may have taken the leap by moving to include Chinese bonds in their indices, but index providers and investors remain cautious on the market impact of the decisions.

Export-Import Bank of China made a strong comeback to the Asia debt market on Tuesday with a $3bn equivalent three tranche dual-currency Reg S deal. Its three year euro bond achieved the lowest spread in the currency from a Chinese name this year.

After launching an indirect connect scheme last October, Deutsche Borse's Clearstream platform is now prepping a direct route into the China interbank bond market (CIBM) for its client base by next year, Philip Brown, the firm's co-CEO, told GlobalRMB.

Guorui Properties and Kangde Xin Composite Material Group are preparing for their respective debuts in the international debt market.

HSBC is understood to be considering transferring a banker from London to take over leveraged and acquisition finance responsibilities for Asia Pacific. This follows the departures of senior Hong Kong-based bankers from the levfin and sponsor coverage teams last month.

Citi has appointed a new markets and securities services head for Hong Kong, tapping a veteran banker to the position.

ICBC International Holdings, through Horsepower Finance, raised $650m on Monday, reaching its $1.2bn debt-raising cap given by regulators last year.

As the market buckles up for a March rate hike, some fixed income investors are playing it safe, becoming price sensitive to new issues. Against that backdrop, China SCE Property Holdings priced a five non call three on Monday with guidance unchanged throughout the day.

Chinese onshore bonds are eligible to join the Citi Fixed Income Indices for the first time, the bank said this week. This follows last week’s publication of new guidelines by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (Safe), which opened the door to foreign investors trading FX derivatives onshore.

Tsinghua Unigroup, part of Chinese state-owned Tsinghua Holdings, is set to sign its debut international loan at $701m — more than twice the launch size of $300m.