HSBC

The US and Hong Kong IPO markets saw a raft of companies trying to catch the last window for their listings before the year end, as the short-lived rally from the US-China trade war ceasefire did little to reassure ECM bankers and investors, writes Christie Ou.

State Bank of India’s $500m loan is now in limited syndication after the senior lenders were mandated in October.

Policy lender China Development Bank printed a dual-currency, three-tranche transaction on Tuesday, raising $2.4bn-equivalent. While it paid just a couple of basis points of new issue premium for the dollar bonds amid a short-lived market rally, demand for the euro portion exceeded expectations.

S4 Capital, the digital advertising and marketing services company created by Martin Sorrell, the former CEO of WPP, has agreed the terms of its second acquisition and is partly financing the deal through a £74m placing and open offer on the London Stock Exchange.

A FIG and corporate DCM banker who worked at HSBC until August has started a new job at Fitch Ratings managing the firm’s client relationships.

Investor demand for more new issue premium forced China’s Citic Securities Co to price a smaller-than-expected $300m bond on Monday.

Tencent Music Entertainment Group has begun bookbuilding for its long-awaited $1.23bn IPO in the US, around two months after first gauging investor appetite.

HSBC has tapped two of its veteran bankers as Guangdong co-chief executives, as part of the bank’s push in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region.

Element Materials Technology, the UK materials testing company owned by Bridgepoint, was looking for a small loan extension this week, and seeking consent from its investors for higher leverage ratios under the loan covenants.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has been looking into bondholder concerns after HSBC decided to reclassify four legacy bank capital instruments earlier this year, leading to a plummet in their value.

Chinese brokerage Huatai Securities has won approval from the Mainland regulator to list Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) in London through the connect scheme with Shanghai.

Fosun Tourism Group, a subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate Fosun International, is being spun-off and has started bookbuilding for its HK$4.28bn ($547.19m) Hong Kong IPO.