South Korea

The Asia ex-Japan debt capital market was crowded with dollar issuers on January 13, with two investment grade bonds and two high yield notes opening in the morning.

Doosan Group jumped at an opportunity to exit from Korea Aerospace Industries this week, agreeing to a fixed price for its W305bn ($251.4m) block and offering an attractive discount of nearly 8%.

Ping An Life Insurance Company of China started building books for its inaugural dollar bond on Tuesday, while South Korea’s Woori Bank and China Energy Reserve and Chemicals Group are also wooing investors for their respective dollar deals.

South Korea’s financial regulator has identified five domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs), which will have to meet more stringent capital requirements from this year.

Jabez Private Equity Fund I offloaded the remainder of its holdings in South Korea’s Hyundai Securities Co on Thursday, fetching W115bn ($96m) from the fixed price offering.

In the first RMB round-up of 2016, Hong Kong RMB deposits and cross-border trade settlement recovered in November, RQFII programme added three new entities in December 2015, the Hong Kong and Singapore exchanges both saw strong futures trading volumes in December, ICBC managed nearly Rmb1tr in RMB-won trades, and Zimbabwe will make RMB one of its legal tenders this year. Plus, a recap of GlobalRMB’s top stories this week.

South Korea's KEB Hana Bank is set to meet investors next week ahead of its first foray into the dollar bond market since its merger.

Three months after South Korea became fully double-A rated for the first time, the sovereign received another boost when Moody’s hiked its rating by one notch to Aa2 in December.

Korea Development Bank (KDB) snagged tight pricing for its $1.5bn dual-tranche bond, completing one of the first deals of the year in Asia. Some accounts stayed away citing expensive pricing and geopolitical concerns, but investors still thronged to the credit, viewing it as a defensive play amid high volatility.

Barclays is preparing to let go of investment banking staff in Asia as the UK lender continues to wind down its presence in non-core markets.

A South Korean deal kicked open the Asian block market this week but complications in the execution have set a negative tone for the country’s equity capital markets, where numerous share sales are expected in 2016. Jonathan Breen reports.

Hong Kong real estate giant Swire Properties and the Korea Development Bank have launched the first investment grade bonds from Asia for 2016, opening books for dollar-denominated transactions on January 6.