UBS

Property companies in Greater China raised more than $6bn from the bond market this week, sparking fears of indigestion.

The past week has been the busiest of the year so far in the international segment of the Swiss franc market, with European bank issuers accounting for much of the new issue flow.

CStone Pharmaceuticals will list Hong Kong’s first biotech IPO of 2019 next week, getting things moving with a deal that bankers said is a sign of a maturing market after 2018's rush of deals.

Chinese high yield borrowers have come to the market in droves this week. That continued on Wednesday, when three deals raised a total of $1.275bn.

UBS is appealing a decision in France that would see it pay €4.5bn after being found guilty of helping clients defraud the tax authorities. The total amount topped market expectations, dwarfed the bank’s provisions for litigation, and gobbled up its 2018 net profits and then some.

Ronshine China Holdings priced the new money portion of its exchange offer after building an order book that covered the deal almost 16 times over. The liability management exercise helped the issuer close the gap between its curve and that of similarly-rated Chinese property developer peers.

Ronshine China Holdings announced the results of an exchange for its outstanding 2021 bond on Monday, at the same time as kicking off bookbuilding for $200m of new funding.

Cifi Holdings (Group) Co returned to the bond market with a $300m transaction. The four year bond’s tight price stood in stark contrast to the two year notes Cifi paid up to sell in December.

Philippine-based PH Resorts Group (PHR) has opened bookbuilding for a potential Ps10.4bn ($198.8m) follow-on offering of common shares.

The international capital market welcomed a new supranational borrower on Monday when Bolivia-based Fonplata issued a debut Sfr150m five year bond via Credit Suisse and UBS.

UBS is re-balancing its corporate finance business to end its reliance on its Financial Institutions Group with impressive results, writes David Rothnie.

CStone Pharmaceuticals has launched Hong Kong’s first biotechnology IPO of the year — and bankers are watching it closely. The up to HK$2.38bn ($304m) deal has received a strong early response, a good sign for the growing pipeline of biotech issuers hoping to put a difficult 2018 behind them. Jonathan Breen reports.