Morgan Stanley

BPHA, a housing association headquartered in Bedford, is looking to sell US private placements, according to several market sources, as private debt remains readily available for UK HAs.

France's Saint-Gobain has met the shareholder and regulatory needs for its around €1.3bn purchase of US plasterboard company Continental Building Products, as the acquisitive construction materials company gets the thumbs up from ratings agencies for swerving the debt markets to fund the deal.

The Republic of Ghana is visiting investors in the US and London with a plan to print a dollar benchmark. But the delegation’s rumoured size has led to surprises before the meetings have started.

Mexico’s largest airline Aeromexico will begin meeting fixed income investors on Monday as it plots what would be its first ever international bond issue.

Peijia Medical and Shenzhen Hepalink Pharmaceutical Group Co have set the ball rolling for Hong Kong IPOs, having filed draft prospectuses with the city’s stock exchange.

Three CEEMEA sovereigns — the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Romania and Ukraine — joined a market this week gripped with a frenzy of new issues. All three deals went well and drew praise and attention in their own rights.

There was a burst of activity from Chinese pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the equity capital markets this week, as the sector took centre stage following the spread of a flu-like virus that has already claimed lives on the mainland. Jonathan Breen reports.

Argenta Spaarbank returned to the euro market on Wednesday to seal a deal that it had pulled in last October. This time around the issuer was able to bring in the funding it wanted, even though the final spread only moved 5bp from initial price thoughts.

Three companies from the Greater China region sealed bonds on Tuesday, likely to be the last batch of issuers to tap the debt market before the Chinese New Year break begins. No Asian borrowers launched dollar deals on Wednesday.

Chinese biopharmaceutical company Zai Lab has kicked off a follow-on offering of its American Depository Shares. It is aiming to raise around $300m.

Two CEEMEA sovereigns are taking the plunge this week — the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with a triple tranche dollar benchmark and Romania with a dual tranche euro bond.

All of the dollar debt issuance from Greater China on Monday came from real estate companies, with six borrowers taking about $1.4bn between them.