Northeast Asia

Japan Finance Organization for Municipalities breezed through a short dated dollar trade on Thursday, picking up a more than doubly subscribed book at what bankers away from the trade put at a low single digits concession.

The idea of a Primary Equity Connect (PEC) linking China and Hong Kong has reared its head again after the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE) published a report trumping its benefits. Needless to say, the market is divided. While many see benefits, others see dangers in bringing the two markets closer together. Jonathan Breen reports.

Best, a logistics firm backed by Alibaba, started pre-marketing its $1bn IPO on the New York Stock Exchange this week, as a clutch of Chinese issuers also filed listing applications in the US.

Sisram Medical launched a HK$1.4bn ($174.2m) IPO in Hong Kong this week and hedge funds have already shown their support for the deal.

Hong Kong-listed China Silver Group is looking to spin off its online jewellery arm CSMall Group through a listing on the city’s bourse.

South Korean retail giant Lotte Shopping Co snapped up $300m on Wednesday from its first bond in five years, defying geopolitical tensions and negative headlines around the Lotte Group to price at a tight spread.

KEB Hana Bank is selling its first-ever US dollar-denominated, dual-listed Formosa bond on Thursday, taking bids for floating rate bond with a five year tenor.

Hong Kong financial investment firm Sun Hung Kai & Co is in the market with a guaranteed Reg S dollar bond, to be issued by a wholly-owned subsidiary.

When China's free trade zone (FTZ) bond market was launched last December, regulators envisaged it as foreign investors’ fast lane into Chinese fixed income. But one year on, there are doubts over whether the market has a future — only one FTZ bond has been sold, and meanwhile the onshore bond market is enjoying a rapid rise.

ICE Futures Singapore, the energy, metals and forex derivatives exchange owned by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), has admitted its fifth member, SinoPac Futures, based in Taiwan.

Kommunalbanken made what bankers away from the trade described as an “excellent” choice of tenor with a dollar benchmark on Wednesday as it tightened pricing from guidance — something that not every issuer has been able to achieve in the currency over the last two weeks. Meanwhile, a Japanese issuer mandated for a trade that bankers expect to go well despite geopolitical tensions in Asia.

The bookrunners on logistics company Best’s potential $1bn US IPO have kicked off pre-marketing, according to a banker working on the deal.