Northeast Asia

Chinese education firm Puxin popped on its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange last Friday, and has stayed strong since, after pricing its IPO at the bottom of the marketing range.

Macau’s casino operator MGM China and subsidiary MGM Grand Paradise have amended and extended credit facilities signed in 2012 for the second time.

Smartphone and devices manufacturer Xiaomi Corp has put the China Depository Receipt (CDR) portion of its $10bn IPO on hold, opting to list in Hong Kong first.

China Reinsurance (Group) Corp’s chairman recently held talks with the Singapore deputy prime minister about catastrophe bonds. The conversation’s timing is bound to raise eyebrows, given the reinsurer’s outstanding cat bond is due next month.

Wuzhou International Holdings’ Hong Kong-listed shares and dollar bonds resumed trading on Friday after slumping heavily in late May. The reopening followed a filing from the company on Thursday evening admitting it has defaulted on some of its payment obligations.

FX watchdog loosens its grip on capital outflows for foreign investors, securities regulator lobbies for A-shares to make up more than 0.73% of MSCI’s benchmark emerging market (EM) index, and the governor of China’s central bank hails Shanghai as the prime spot to pilot further liberalisation.

New benchmark created for interbank bonds, the Institute of International Finance (IIF) projects further inflows into China’s capital markets, and the White House is reportedly going ahead with plans to place tariffs on $50bn of Chinese imports.

Xiaomi Corp has said that about half of its expected $10bn dual listing in Hong Kong and China will come from the offering of China Depositary Receipts to Mainland investors.

The Export-Import Bank of Korea returned to the Swiss franc bond market on Thursday, capitalising on an arbitrage window against its dollar curve.

Social bonds in Asia have been rare, to say the least. But with Industrial Bank of Korea preparing for the region’s first dollar-denominated social bond issuance, the potential for the market is huge, writes Jasper Cox.

Asia’s bond market suffered prolonged bouts of volatility in the first half of the year. Bankers, credit analysts and asset managers are trying to shake off the disappointments in both the primary and secondary markets, but the signs are not good. Addison Gong reports.

Companies in both China and India have to find their way through regulatory labyrinths to gain approval to sell offshore bonds. But although both countries have overbearing, occasionally irrational, regulators, they differ in one key respect.