South Korea

South Korea’s Kookmin Bank is looking to price its second covered bond on Thursday, while HNA Group is out to tap its existing dollar notes that were issued two months ago.

South Korea’s stock market regulator has approved Hotel Lotte’s plans for an IPO, which could raise as much as $5bn and take the title of the largest listing in the country.

Samsung Bioepis, the pharmaceutical arm of the South Korean conglomerate, has decided to postpone its Nasdaq IPO due to valuation issues and to make way for the listing of Samsung BioLogics.

South Korea’s Samsung BioLogics is set to send out a request for proposals for its IPO, which is likely to launch by the end of 2016, according to market sources.

Korea Exchange has put together a group of specialists to help attract blue chip companies from Indonesia and Vietnam to list in South Korea.

Barclays beat a hasty retreat this week from the bulk of its investment banking operations in Asia, shuttering offices in multiple countries and slashing hundreds of jobs amid a wider global cull in costs and personnel. It did not pull any punches, with the cuts stretching across the equities, loans and bonds products. John Loh reports.

KEB Hana Bank battled choppy markets with its first international outing after its merger. As volatility heightened during bookbuilding, the lender opted to scale back the size of the deal in exchange for tighter pricing.

Barclays is pulling out of the cash equities business in Asia Pacific as the bank stages a total exit from a number of countries in the region including Taiwan and Korea.

South Korea’s KEB Hana Bank has gone live with the first international bond since its merger, launching a dollar deal on Wednesday morning.

Doosan Group exited from Korea Aerospace Industries this month via a block, which in a move away from traditional sell-downs in Asia, was executed as a private placement. Privately placed blocks appear to be emerging as a new solution for deals during tough times — and it’s an approach that other South Korean vendors should replicate.

Export-Import Bank of Korea (Kexim) is gearing up to sell its first Panda bond in 2016. The policy lender is considering the asset class due to its attractive pricing when compared with offshore renminbi bonds.

The drop in offshore RMB (CNH) deposits in Hong Kong, and the further tightening of CNH liquidity due to the intervention of the Chinese central bank, is being touted as examples of how investors are ready to sell out of RMB assets. But a glance at liquidity trends across other RMB hubs reveals that the picture may be more nuanced.