Morgan Stanley

Portugal is limbering up for its first benchmark of the year in a week heavy with eurozone periphery sovereign issuance, including an auction where Italy’s three year yield nearly dipped below zero.

China Nonferrous Metal Mining and Vista Land & Lifescapes are meeting investors ahead of their respective dollar offerings, while Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology is set to gauge interest in Europe for a euro-denominated deal.

The start to 2016’s equity business has not been easy, with markets doing little to help convince issuers to pull the trigger. But European stockmarkets have settled down, and are managing sometimes to trade well even on days when China’s market falls.

The Asia ex-Japan debt capital market was crowded with dollar issuers on January 13, with two investment grade bonds and two high yield notes opening in the morning.

Spain has opened its funding year with a deal in the upper echelons of record sovereign deal sizes and an enormous book for the third year running. but it's the quality of investor the sovereign attracted this time that was most notable, according to bankers.

Spain has mandated for its first deal of the year, but the sovereign has taken the rare step of bringing a syndication in the same week as it is holding auctions.

Shire has signed an $18bn loan with two underwriters to fund the cash component of its $32bn acquisition of Baxalta, a pharmaceuticals company specialising in rare diseases. Syndication of the loan will begin swiftly, according to bankers familiar with the transaction.

Jiangsu Hansoh Pharmaceutical Co and Simcere Pharmaceutical Group are looking to raise a combined $2.5bn from Hong Kong IPOs that could launch in the first half of 2016.

Jabez Private Equity Fund I offloaded the remainder of its holdings in South Korea’s Hyundai Securities Co on Thursday, fetching W115bn ($96m) from the fixed price offering.

Supranational and agency borrowers have long anticipated a wave of demand from American investors as US government sponsored enterprise issuance dwindles. But this week there were concrete signs that the dollar bond market has shaken off the problems that prevented the big switch. Craig McGlashan reports.

A healthy euro benchmark pipeline is building for next week, with one supranational looking to print and a pair of sovereigns believed to be considering deals, after a week that didn’t finish as strongly as it started for core issuers.

Morgan Stanley has made a number of top-level staffing changes along with the appointment of its new president.