Deutsche unveils Asian management team

Asian markets are better placed to cope with a Greek euro exit than they were with Lehman Brothers’ collapse in 2008, bankers say. Questions remain, however, over the ability of the region’s leading economies to respond to a slump in global trade – especially after China’s rate cut last Thursday. And, if Greece’s exit should lead to a full-scale collapse of the euro, all bets are off. “Asia is pretty well set up now for whatever happens in Greece,” said one head of Asian investment banking in Hong Kong. “There will no doubt be knock-on effects...

Source: Reuters/Supri Supri A bank employee sorts rupiah banknotes at the Bank in Jakarta April 26, 2012. The Republic of Indonesia is considering its first offering of US dollar bonds in its onshore market to increase liquidity in the reserve currency and help stem the fall of the rupiah. The unusual deal is designed to lure Indonesian banks and corporations to repatriate dollar funds currently invested overseas. Foreign bankers said the plan was floated in recent weeks as Bank Indonesia scrambled for options to alleviate a currency squeeze in...

Source: Reuters/STRINGER Hong Kong Former Chief Executive of subway operator MTR Chow and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing CEO Li speak to reporters in Hong Kong Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing is finally seeing its efforts to promote renminbi listings pay off, with some small listing candidates ready to try out the dual-currency model. The outcome, however, may not be what the operator of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong and the wider market had expected as the marketing effort has failed to attract a big, high-profile transaction. Instead,...

Source: Reuters/Bobby Yip The logo of the Bank of Communications is displayed outside one of its branch in Hong Kong China is set to allow the first asset-backed securitisations from the banking sector since 2008 under a new round of pilot projects. The move will unleash up to Rmb50bn (US$7.9bn) of new deals, with the potential for much more to come if the pilot scheme takes off. Last week, the State Council, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and the Peoples Bank of China jointly released the “Notice on Further Expanding the Credit...

Two Asian companies launched bonds in the public dollar market last Thursday, taking advantage of a brief rally to raise a combined US$1bn. The pair of benchmark trades not only underlined the appeal of high-rated Asian credits even in volatile markets, but also reflected fear that the mounting eurozone crisis could shut off access to capital. Thai oil company PTT Exploration and Production had been holding back on its transaction for almost a month after roadshow meetings, hoping that the market would improve. PTTEP passed up a couple of clear...

Source: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst A woman sells lottery tickets at the 7-Eleven store where a potential winning ticket for the Mega Millions jackpot lottery was sold last week in Baltimore County Malaysia’s Berjaya Sports Toto is looking to capitalise on the continuing appetite for gambling stocks in Singapore with a listing of wholly owned Sports Toto Malaysia as a business trust. The decision to carve out a large portion of domestically listed Berjaya Sports Toto for an overseas listing has confused some bankers. One banker away from the deal...

Growing risk aversion and volatile local benchmark rates are forcing Singapore corporations to postpone planned new offerings. Frasers Centrepoint and Keppel Corp had been sounding the market in the past couple of weeks. The deals, if successful, would have re-opened the local debt market after a recent lull in new issues. A surge in risk aversion, however, put paid to those ideas. While fears for the eurozone make investors less keen to book new issues, the flight to safety is also wreaking havoc on Singapore’s benchmark rates. Fears of a...

Source: Reuters/Rupak De Chowdhuri A man walks past an RBI logo in front of its building in Kolkata Indian banks are actively looking to tap the overseas US dollar bond market after the central bank recently removed a cap on interest rates for export credits in foreign currencies. Although Indian banks have been keen to tap the dollar market for some time, they have generally held back, because high credit spreads would eat into their own lending margins. However, thanks to the Reserve Bank of India, the country’s lenders may be getting some...

The continued weakness of the Indian rupee is reinforcing the appeal of hedging for the country’s overseas borrowers. The rupee recovered some ground last week, but its near 25% plunge against the US dollar over the last 12 months has left companies facing far higher costs when it comes to servicing outstanding FX loans. “Such a volatility in effective cost is unacceptable for any corporate,” said Samir Lodha of QuantArt Market Solutions, an India-based forex hedge advisory firm. Despite that, however, as much as 60% of the US$100bn in...

The secondary Asian credit markets continue to roll along in the shadow of the eurozone crisis, exhibiting the fundamental lack of dynamism associated with a moribund primary arena. Although two dollar deals – for Export Import Bank of Malaysia (Mexim) and Thailand’s PTTEP – printed last week, an acceleration of the primary market, as in the first four months of the year, seems unlikely unless there is a major breakthrough in the eurozone crisis, which now contains another potentially lethal moving part in the form of Spain’s economic and...

Suzhou Huadong Coating Glass launched China’s first SME private enterprise bonds last Friday. As a result of a guarantee from Suzhou Guofa Small and Medium Business Guarantee Investment, the Rmb50m (US$7.85m) two-year bond was priced at 9.5%. Soochow Securities was the sole lead manager on the deal. Bankers close to the deal said the Suzhou Huadong filed the issuance application last Thursday and received approval from the Shanghai Stock Exchange a day later.    Six other companies applied to the SSE to issue a total of Rmb470m of similar bonds...

Dynam Group, Japan’s second-largest pachinko parlour operator in terms of sales, applied for listing approval from the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong last Thursday. At the time of writing, the leads still had not heard from the SEHK on whether the application had been approved. Pachinko parlour operators are not welcome as listing candidates in Japan because of the quasi-gambling nature of the business. Bankers close to the deal said earlier Dynam chose to list in Hong Kong as it had proven to be a suitable venue for gaming floats, following the...