Hong Kong SAR

Credit Suisse has been fined $77m by the US authorities to settle charges around its hiring of friends and family of Chinese government officials to win investment banking business.

Mainland real estate services firm E-House China Enterprise Holdings launched bookbuilding on Friday for a Hong Kong IPO that could raise up to HK$5.7bn ($727.2m).

China Grand Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Holdings has opted to pay for its acquisition of Australia-listed Sirtex Medical with a HK$2.9bn ($370m) rights issue.

Hong Kong-listed China Water Affairs Group (CWAG) has hit the Panda bond market for the first time, raising Rmb200m ($30.3m) from a private deal. Bankers think private placements and cornerstone-driven transactions are only going to get more attractive, in large part thanks to rising bond market volatility.

Goldman’s Furtado heads to Citi — HNA chairman dies on business trip — Veteran loans banker Pemberton passes away — Everbright nabs structured finance boss — Chaudhry leaves Deutsche to study

Two Chinese companies, United Asia Finance and Greentown China Holdings, have received strong responses to their offshore borrowings, allowing them to increase the loan sizes.

Hong Kong was inundated with IPO filings this week as banks sought to give themselves enough runway to launch deals before the end of the year.

Xiaomi Corp may have raised a little less than expected in its much-hyped Hong Kong debut, but China Tower Corp is ready to steal the thunder with a juicy $10bn IPO.

China’s Ministry of Finance sold Rmb5bn ($755.5m) of offshore RMB bonds on Thursday, and managed to keep the coupons of the two tranches below last year’s levels. But analysts say the sovereign’s success was limited by a modest fundraising target, which partly reflects the shift of focus to onshore Chinese bonds.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s revolutionary change to its listing regime for biotechnology companies is starting to pay off, as the pipeline of pre-revenue firms looking to go public builds. But there are numerous challenges ahead, not least in understanding the sector and the risks involved. Jonathan Breen reports.

Inke priced its Hong Kong IPO at the low end of expectations on Thursday to raise HK$1.2bn ($152.9m), amid investor jitters about a China-US trade war.

Cornerstone investors used to be the trusted, fail-safe, mechanism that ensured the success of Hong Kong IPOs. Not anymore, writes Clawback columnist Philippe Espinasse.