Northeast Asia

Hyosung Vina Chemicals is holding bank presentations and a site visit at the end of January to woo lenders with a $750m syndicated financing that has been relaunched with a smaller size, higher margins and a different bookrunning team.

Japanese regulators are looking to implement risk retention requirements for investors that closely mirror European-style regulation, bringing them more in line with Europe but potentially distancing Japanese investors from US ABS markets.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group has appointed Jason Mann as European head of financial institutions DCM, a role which will be based in a branch of the bank’s new subsidiary, established to prepare for Brexit.

The US government shutdown hit 24 days on Monday, a record kerfuffle for the country. As primary equity markets teams, most importantly at the Securities and Exchange Commission, run on skeleton crews, the IPO pipeline could come under some threat.

Mainland firm Shanghai Gench Education Group is planning to list in Hong Kong and has submitted its draft prospectus to the stock exchange.

Future Land Development Holdings got a head start on other high yield issuers gearing up to hit the bond market this week, raising $300m on Monday at a level that was 37.5bp inside initial guidance.

Investors flocked to Korea Midland Power Co’s (Komipo) green bond on Monday, funnelling $3bn of orders into a $300m deal that offered a quality credit and an attractive tenor to the buy side.

Chinese oil major Sinopec has received approval from the country’s regulator to list its retail business in Hong Kong, according to a source close to the situation.

China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange expanded the total available quota for the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) scheme, one of the country’s longest-standing capital markets access programmes. The move came before the upcoming further inclusions of Chinese securities in global investment indices.

Sub-one year dollar bonds from Chinese issuers are back, but this time they are being used strategically to get reasonable pricing during tough times. Rather than condemn this tenor, it is time to view these notes for what they are — practical and providing flexibility.

Barclays has appointed Vanessa Koo as head of banking for Asia Pacific and Lars Aagaard as head of mergers and acquisitions for the region.

ASM Pacific Technology is tapping the offshore loan market for the first time, raising a HK$2.25bn ($287m) five year borrowing to refinance a convertible bond maturing in March.