UBS

Three Chinese issuers visited the dollar bond market on Thursday, raising $1.2bn between them.

UBS has appointed Martin Yule as head of research for Asia Pacific, effective on March 1.

Intense demand in the Swiss franc bond market for any asset with a positive yield — or even anything yielding more than the penal negative rates on cash — gave a varied group of issuers this week execution that pushed the boundaries — bigger, faster and tighter.

ING left its investors bemused on Wednesday, when it decided to pull the additional tier one (AT1) bond it was marketing on the basis of undisclosed information it had received. After the news of its chief executive’s move to UBS quickly became public, the door was left open for the bank to complete the trade.

UBS has made several senior staff in Spain redundant, including Madrid-based DCM managing director Daniel Vazquez Villanueva, GlobalCapital understands. The cuts came as part of a general redundancy round last year, but revenues from the region have been hurt by a hard stop in business from Santander after it decided not to hire former UBS investment banking boss Andrea Orcel as chief executive.

A lack of credible internal candidates and a desire for stability across its divisions led UBS to cast the net wider to find a successor to chief executive Sergio Ermotti. It has appointed ING CEO Ralph Hamers.

International bond volumes from India so far this year have almost doubled from the same period in 2019, showing the strength of the country’s issuers as they continue to emerge from a turbulent period. Debt bankers are optimistic that India is set for a strong 2020, writes Morgan Davis.

Chinese corporations bombarded investors with new bond options on Wednesday, allowing three issuers to raise $625m between then. Hong Kong-based asset manager ESR Cayman joined the fray in Singapore, grabbing S$225m ($161.55m).

Citic, Yango Group Co and Kunming Industrial Development and Investment Co were the three Chinese issuers that tapped bond investors for new dollar deals on Tuesday.

A pre-IPO investor in Just Eat, the UK takeaway delivery service, has sold a chunk of its stake in the company via an accelerated bookbuild led by UBS. The sale follows Just Eat's takeover by Dutch rival Takeaway.com.

India Infoline Finance, a non-banking financial company (NBFC), made its debut in the international debt market on Wednesday, raising $400m from a bond that paid a negative new issue premium.

Piraeus Bank took advantage of the recent hunt for yield in the euro market this week, pricing a new tier two with a yield of 5.5% on Wednesday. The €500m bond was eight times subscribed, which is testament to the prevailing hunt for yield in the bond market.