United States

Chinese hospitality company Huazhu Group has launched a secondary offering in Hong Kong, the latest in a growing number of dual listings on the bourse.

Nestlé made the tech stock sell-off look irrelevant as it raced into the US corporate bond market as soon as it opened this week, raising $4bn and scoring the lowest coupons on record for a 144A issuer at those maturities on each of its four tranches.

The resilience of capital markets in the face of the coronavirus pandemic has encouraged equity issuers and sellers to bring an abundance of IPOs, rights issues and block trades this autumn. Indices have bounced since their March nadir but their vulnerability — and that of ECM activity — to the tech stocks that have driven the rebound was made stark this week when the Nasdaq index fell more than 10% in two days, write Sam Kerr and Aidan Gregory.

A year on from the closure of its flow equity trading business, Deutsche Bank’s investment bank is back in a bullish mood after performing well during the first stage of the coronavirus crisis.

Boutique firm Liberum has picked David Parsons as executive chairman and Bidhi Bhoma as chief executive, as founder Shane Le Prevost, who previously held both those positions, is stepping down.

Chinese pet-focused e-commerce site Boqii Holding filed its listing documents for a US IPO on Tuesday, but Citigroup, one of the original lead banks on the deal, is now no longer in the syndicate.

Chindata Group Holdings, iHuman and Yalla Group filed IPO paperwork with the US regulator on Tuesday as they prepare to float on New York stock exchanges.

Equity investors should be nervous about US tech valuations as the fabled FAANG (named for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google) stocks look extremely expensive after reaping in the cash during the equity rally that followed the initial Covid-19 sell-off. With valuations at near-preposterous levels and the macro-economic environment worsening with rising Covid-19 cases and a bitter election around the corner, market moves down last week could be a sign of worrying times ahead.

Singapore-based special purpose acquisition company (Spac) Aspirational Consumer Lifestyle Corp is looking to raise $225m from a listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

German real estate company Vonovia priced a €1bn accelerated capital raise on Thursday to take advantage of possible growth opportunities arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. The deal was covered quickly and attracted enough demand to cover the transaction several times but execution was made complicated by a sell-off in US tech stocks on Thursday evening.

Yum China, the Mainland-based fast food franchise operator, was eyeing at least HK$17.3bn ($2.2bn) in fresh equity on Friday after giving investors some price guidance for its secondary listing in Hong Kong.

The summer slowdown finally arrived in the US corporate bond market this week, with just a handful of issuers showing up before September's season truly begins — bringing what is expected to be a bumper crop of deals.