Northeast Asia

In a sign of warming relations between China and Germany, regulators in China gave Deutsche Bank the licence to underwrite corporate bonds in the interbank market. But the bank has its sights set on a bigger prize — the right to joint lead underwrite Panda bonds for corporate issuers.

Lukewarm demand for recent floating rate notes, and their underperformance in the secondary market, has raised a key question for Asian issuers: are investors falling out of love with dollar floaters? Morgan Davis finds out.

CNFinance Holdings has filed for a $200m flotation of American Depositary Shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

European and Asian stock markets have fell sharply on Wednesday morning as investors attempted to position for escalation in trade hostilities between the US and China.

A shareholder in Korea Aerospace Industries has bagged W236.4bn ($210.9m) after cleaning up its position in the company through a block trade on Tuesday evening.

The Republic of Korea has sent out a request for proposals for a new bond issue, and is expected to select the bookrunning banks by next Tuesday.

Stock Connect and Bond Connect are international investors’ favourite channels to tap the onshore capital markets thanks to their simplicity compared with other access programmes, according to a survey by Standard Chartered.

Ronshine China Holdings reopened a 2021 bond on Tuesday, adding $225m to a three year puttable line sealed in January this year. The deal is the latest in a series of capital raising exercises designed to ease the firm’s refinancing burden.

In a damning assessment, a European business lobby says China’s foreign ownership reform in the financial sector has done little to help foreign firms compete in the onshore market, and calls on Beijing to grant international institutions more freedom to engage in cross-border services.

Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) raised $3.5bn from a triple-tranche bond deal in its first outing in the dollar market since November.

In a sign of warming relations between China and Germany, Chinese authorities said they would let Deutsche Bank underwrite corporate bonds in the interbank market. The bank is hoping to grab two different types of underwriting licences, GlobalRMB has learned.

London-based equity capital markets investors are beginning to wonder whether the trade hostility between China and the US will hurt Hong Kong’s vibrant IPO market and are considering repositioning if it does.