Greater China

Latham & Watkins has hired senior capital markets lawyer Yilong Du as a partner in its corporate department, tapping his experience in the China market to bolster its platform in Hong Kong and mainland China.

Chinese company Minsheng Financial Leasing has cut the size of its onshore loan to $150m, a move that has seen it reduce the tenor and save on pricing with its revamped deal.

Bank of Zhengzhou, one of China’s biggest commercial lenders, has filed an application to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx) via joint sponsors Bocom International and Citic CLSA Securities.

In this round-up, Hong Kong and Taiwan RMB deposits shrink slightly while RMB cross-border trade settlement surges to new records in both Hong Kong and China, the RQFII programme reaches Rmb410bn ($80bn), Georgia and Kyrgyzstan work on establishing RMB swap lines with China, and Nanning authorities plan a new China-ASEAN currency index.

IMAX China has priced its Hong Kong IPO near the bottom of the range to raise HK$1.92bn ($247.74m), after initially guiding investors towards the middle.

JP Morgan has made two senior hires to its China investment banking business, this time poaching from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Rothschild as it continues to build its franchise in the country.

The People’s Bank of China announced just ahead of the Chinese national holiday of October 1 that it would allow foreign central banks, sovereign wealth funds and international financial organisations to trade in the onshore foreign exchange (FX) markets.

Manulife Asset Management has appointed a new chief executive officer and chief investment officer for its Taiwan unit.

EDF has expanded its investor base into Taiwan with a $1.5bn bond, the first time a European issuer has bought a dollar bond to the Formosa market.

China Development Bank sealed a $1.56bn dual-currency bond on September 29, coming to the market on a day of immense volatility in global stocks. But anchor orders helped save the deal, which saw very little demand from international investors.

China Reinsurance is slated to start gauging demand for its $2bn Hong Kong IPO on October 5, with books set to open a week later, according to a banker working on the transaction.

There was a time when Bogotá’s public transport system looked a bit like that computer game where the frog has to get across a highway without being flattened. The streets were gridlocked with buses, and not with any sense of co-ordination among them.