Northeast Asia

Credit Suisse has made Ali Naqvi head of its Asia Pacific global markets division, less than a year after the team went through a restructuring.

Two firms stole the headlines in the Panda bond market this week, with Shimao Property Holdings filing for a new programme and China Orient Asset Management (International) Holdings’ cancelling its planned outing.

Hangzhou Mi Lu Technology Co, which owns Chinese social media platform kktv5.com, is laying the groundwork for a Hong Kong IPO this year, according to bankers close to the matter.

The heat is on for IPOs in south-east Asia, with banks staging charm offensives towards investors during pre-marketing.

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange is set to pull out all the stops to woo energy giant Saudi Aramco to list on the bourse, with its chief executive describing it as a “match made in heaven” this week. But the HKEX has even bigger ambitions — to move from an exchange dominated by Chinese companies to one with foreign issuers, writes Jonathan Breen.

Events, including a rise in the probability of a March interest rate hike and US President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress, did not hold investors back from jumping into deals from Grand China Air, China Aircraft Leasing Group (CALC) and Hong Kong Express Airways (HK Express) on Tuesday.

Borrowers that ventured out to the Asia debt market on Wednesday should consider themselves lucky as the competition turned fierce on Thursday with six live deals. Beijing Properties (Holdings) and China Everbright Bank Hong Kong were among the names that managed to get ahead of the supply deluge.

Onshore RMB bonds are increasingly making their presence felt in the international stage following the launch of a pair of Bloomberg-Barclays China indices on Wednesday.

The strength of the primary debt market in Asia shows no signs of abating, with a number of borrowers heading out on Thursday for fresh dollar fundraisings.

The leads working on the government of Mongolia’s keenly-watched dollar bond have opened books, guiding investors towards a seven year deal at the 8.25% area.

International asset managers are pushing for a more liberal version of the upcoming China-Hong Kong ETF Connect, with the focus on whether ETFs will be considered as stocks or funds by the regulators.

China Orient Asset Management (International) Holdings’ proposed Rmb2.8bn ($407m) Panda bond programme on the Shanghai Stock Exchange has been cancelled.