Japan

Japan’s borrowers have been slow to board the SRI train. However, this is beginning to change, thanks to committed issuers such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Development Bank of Japan and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

On Monday, Japanese brewer Asahi Group brought the fourth European bond issue by a beer producer in Europe in 2017, having roadshowed its debut euro bond the previous week.

Japanese telecoms company SoftBank has done it again. On Tuesday, it replicated its 2015 success of a €4.5bn bond issued outside of the US high yield market with a new €4.75bn issue.

On Monday, Japanese brewer Asahi Group brought the fourth European bond issue by a beer producer in Europe in 2017. The €1.2bn dual tranche offering was the largest of four new issues in the euro corporate bond market, all of which were rated triple-B and paid double digit new issue premiums.

SoftBank, the Japanese telecoms and technology group, received the highest speculative grade ratings for its potential new bond deal on Friday. It will aim at repeating its notable success in the European high yield market in 2015

UBS has hired a handful of senior bankers for its Japanese equity and fixed income units from Mizuho and other rivals, boosting its bench strength amid growth in client activity and deal flow.

ANZ has hired Hodaka Shoji as head of specialised finance for Japan, wooing him from Mizuho AsiaInfra Capital (MAIC) in Singapore.

Public sector issuers navigated a choppy start to the week to print strong dollar trades, but some SSA bankers worry that the problems that brought that early volatility are far from resolved.

The revival of equity-linked bond issuance in Europe was crowned on Thursday by the launch of one of the biggest deals this year, for ANA Holdings, which owns All Nippon Airways. Nomura was the bookrunner.

Japan Finance Organization for Municipalities breezed through a short dated dollar trade on Thursday, picking up a more than doubly subscribed book at what bankers away from the trade put at a low single digits concession.

Kommunalbanken made what bankers away from the trade described as an “excellent” choice of tenor with a dollar benchmark on Wednesday as it tightened pricing from guidance — something that not every issuer has been able to achieve in the currency over the last two weeks. Meanwhile, a Japanese issuer mandated for a trade that bankers expect to go well despite geopolitical tensions in Asia.

The Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) is set to go on the road to promote its third sustainability bond. Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten has also unveiled plans to return to SRI this year.