UBS

Banks have enjoyed a hot funding streak in the sterling market in recent weeks, with pent up demand pushing supply towards its highest year in over a decade. Some market participants, however, are worried the superlative conditions might vanish just as quickly as they appeared.

Santander and Barclays ended multi-year absences from the Swiss franc market to land a pair of senior deals flat to euros this week as funding diversification trumped arbitrage considerations.

Kintor Pharmaceutical raised HK$1.17bn ($151m) on Wednesday from a top-up share placement, while a co-founder simultaneously trimmed his stake in the company.

Silicon wafer maker GlobalWafers raised $1bn this week from its debut in the equity-linked market, selling the largest convertible bond from a Taiwanese issuer in more than a decade.

Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Group, which tapped the loan market for a $7.2bn bridge loan last year to acquire retail giant Tesco’s Asia business, is now seeking covenant waivers on the fundraising. The move — which bankers say is triggered in part by CP’s plan to offload some of its newly-gained stake in Tesco — has hurt lenders’ confidence in the Thai conglomerate and raised questions around its strategy. Pan Yue reports.

ABN Amro brushed aside concerns about the bid for long end paper on Wednesday, as it secured a tight spread on a 12 year deal in the euro market. It was joined by a couple of other banks targeting more conventional maturities.

A handful of Chinese investment grade names bombarded the dollar debt market on Tuesday, taking more than $2bn.

Kanzhun, China’s largest online recruitment platform, is planning a $100m listing of American depository shares on the Nasdaq.

UBS Group made a swift return to the dollar bond market on Tuesday, as it went in search of an additional tier one transaction a day after raising $3bn of senior unsecured debt.

Country Garden Services Holdings rode on strong institutional investor demand to raise $2bn from a combined equity placement and convertible bond issue this week.

Three Chinese borrowers and one Hong Kong issuer hit the international bond market on Monday, getting ahead of a pick-up in deal flow expected in the rest of the week.

UBS was set to issue three tranches of dollar debt through its operating company on Monday, as it sought to tap into a strong pool of demand for short-dated bank issuance.