News content

In this round-up, Macau RMB deposits and cross-border RMB trade settlement fall in February, ICBC launches RMB clearing in Thailand, the Shanghai FTZ expands four-fold, and Kenya hopes to become the RMB hub in Africa.

The New York branches of Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) and China Merchants Bank (CMB) are meeting investors ahead of possible dollar bonds. The deals would be debuts for both entities.

Lloyds Bank has hired a new head of US FX sales, based in New York.

Mobin Petrochemical Co has floated 7% of its share capital in Tehran, the stock exchange said in a statement on Wednesday.

Italian construction company Società Italiana per Condotte d’Acqua aims to price its first bond, €300m of senior unsecured notes, next week.

The Australian Securities Exchange has joined up with the China Futures Association to expand commodity and interest rate derivative markets in the Pacific through shared training and personnel exchanges.

Labco, the French medical diagnostics firm, opened the book on Wednesday for its initial public offering, which could total €545m at the top of the price range.

UK publisher Pearson has followed up its successful return to the euro bond market last year with a tightly priced 10 year, almost five times oversubscribed.

Solairedirect, the French solar power developer and asset manager cancelled its planned Paris IPO on Wednesday, having tried, but failed, to get enough investors on board until the very final day of bookbuild.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has returned to the European bond market, issuing 10 and 20 year bonds to replace its existing euro bonds maturing in 2016 and 2021.

Dong Energy became the latest in a string of companies to refinance hybrid capital bonds this year, when it issued a €600m 1,000 year non-call 5.5 deal on Wednesday.

Portugal priced an oversubscribed dual tranche benchmark on Wednesday afternoon, executing the deal during a sell-off in Europe’s periphery.