Morgan Stanley

Japan telecoms company SoftBank took another step towards its flotation this week by replacing its intergroup credit with a double-B rated leveraged loan. This followed a high-yield bond sale in April with the same purpose.

Russia’s Mechel has signed a $1bn-equivalent loan facility, as the metals and mining group pushes ahead with plans to restructure its debt portfolio by the end of 2018.

Mercedes-Benz Auto Finance has completed the tightest auto asset-backed securitization by any foreign originator in China in almost two years. The deal, which closed on Monday, was twice oversubscribed despite two underwriters dropping out of the syndicate at the eleventh hour.

The pipeline of Asian IPOs headed for the US is shaping up for September, with the latest crop of issuers all starting to drum up investor interest.

Tianqi Lithium is turning to equity investors after making a debt-fuelled play for its Chilean rival, in an acquisition that pressured its ratings and threatened to rob it of investment grade status.

Morgan Stanley’s Alex Abagian has been named as a co-head of Asia Pacific equity capital markets, according to people familiar with the matter.

A London-based SSA syndicate banker at Morgan Stanley has left the bank a year after joining, GlobalCapital understands.

The US corporate bond market continued at a strong pace this week, ignoring the lure of the beach that sees its European counterparts' new issue flow slow to a standstill in August. More than $22bn of bonds were sold in the first three days of the week and around half of that was raised by United Technologies Corp.

China’s answer to Tesla is set to make a splash with its New York IPO. Nio is preparing a multibillion-dollar listing that will test investor appetite for the booming electric car industry. John Loh reports.

Deutsche Bank taps Ngan for ECM — Citi names first BRI head — Li emerges at Citic — Morgan Stanley promotes in SEA — Nomura hires for Korea DCM

Geely and BNP Paribas’s auto finance joint venture hit the Chinese securitization market with a bang on Tuesday, as domestic investors oversubscribed its single tranche sale by three times. The deal came a week before Mercedes is scheduled to launch a similarly structured transaction, which will be its first in China this year.

After a two year absence in the Panda bond market, Veolia Environnement made its return last week to raise Rmb1bn ($145.6m). Instead of placing another three year bond, the French corporate issuer cut the tenor to just one year — a move that paid off for the borrower, said bankers.