Capital Markets
LATEST ARTICLES
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Several Chinese bubble-tea makers are looking at Hong Kong IPOs. When high-end tea maker Nayuki listed three years ago the market drank it up, but the deal now trades 90% below its listing price. Can a new group of issuers revive the market?
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China’s Project Whitelist, launched at the start of the year, exists to ensure bank funding for property development. But it is there to protect projects, not the developers behind them.
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Encumbered by an impotent fiscal policy and a sluggish stock market, bank lending could be China’s only route to economic recovery.
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As Japan puts an end to the global negative interest rate era, its central bank's QE programme remains in place and may be a model for peers. Investors maintain a bullish outlook on the stock market.
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Stock market reform has not only revitalized the country's capital markets but has also permeated the real economy. Countries like Korea are quickly following suit. Interestingly, China also seems to be drawing inspiration.
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In the wake of heavy losses and mis-selling to retail investors, there is an urgent need for an overhaul of risk management in the banking sector.
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The Sino-Swiss corridor, set up to encourage Chinese firms to sell global depositary receipts to international investors in the European state, took off fast in 2022. But a host of challenges, from Chinese regulatory concerns to an apparent lack of global interest, has stalled its progress.
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While the world’s biggest markets are still preparing for T+1 settlement, talk is growing of the next step – but going any faster would mean a total reworking of how markets function.
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It is not hard to find short-term worries over global markets’ state of readiness for the US’s transition to one-day settlement in late May. But even if the UK, Europe and those Asian markets still using two-day settlement can adapt to the shift in the longer term, they will also face intense pressure to lessen their dislocation from the US cycle by copying its move. Many also fear the ultimate end-game of same-day or even instant settlement.
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Many factors explain Japan’s renewed allure to global corporate and financial institutions. Inbound FDI is rising, with local stock prices regularly hitting record highs. Is the economy’s long-awaited renaissance a passing phase or here to stay?
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With its economy embattled and investors fleeing in droves, getting good data on China has never been more important. There are some great analysts and research shops out there. Trouble is, too many China-facing reports suffer from a lack of imagination, groupthink brought on by a fear of irritating Beijing and an over-reliance on state data. That must change.
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Hong Kong-based Chinese investment banks, plagued by the market’s liquidity issues, are looking to China's economic pivot and the renminbi's rise as a fundraising currency to restore their fortunes.
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At the start of 2023, analysts sized China and liked what they saw: an economy reopening after three years of Covid isolation, and ready once again to roar. Nothing of the sort has happened and corporates and institutional investors are now fleeing the market in droves.
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Restrictions may come at a cost as MSCI considers developed market status.
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As the Chinese property crisis deepens, a new round of bank-led rescue efforts is on the horizon. While banks must shoulder part of the blame for the crisis, their options for action are limited.
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The travails of Zhongzhi, a key player in China’s poorly regulated $3 trillion shadow financing market, underline why a future crisis in the country is more likely, not less.
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Rakuten needs money – and lots of it – as its mobile telecommunications arm continues to burn cash. But it is running out of things to sell, while its debt profile is miserable.
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While the dollar’s international supremacy is unchallenged for now, the wider landscape is shifting. Companies are raising more funding in renminbi and the currency’s use in international payments and settlements is growing.
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Pressure is growing on Japan’s self-imposed caps on government bond yields. Positive rates must be around the corner, but what will that mean for banks and public debt?
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AsiamoneySoutheast Asia is driving increased equity market activity within the region, but it’s a different game further north.
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Southeast Asia’s capital markets are buzzing, making them hot favourites with global investors. But be warned: some big obstacles are expected in the months ahead, testing the ability of issuers and investment banks to get deals over the line.
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President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s latest policy splash is the $8.8 billion Maharlika Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth vehicle that aims to boost growth and inward investment. But it has drawn criticism, even within Marcos’s family. Many highlight the cautionary tale of Malaysia’s 1MDB, and fret about the capacity for corruption and poor governance.
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AsiamoneyOutbound Chinese M&A deal-flow has slowed to a crawl even as inbound activity remains steady. So focus in the region is moving elsewhere: to rising India, steady-and-lucrative Australia and even Japan, where once-bloated conglomerates are streamlining portfolios under intense pressure from activist shareholders.
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Issuance has barely stopped in Indonesia’s IPO market this year. Global investors have bought into the resource-led story with glee – and there are plenty of deals in the pipeline.
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Indonesia is one of the world’s brighter prospects right now: growth, demographics, infrastructure momentum, inflation under control, more equity raised in the first quarter in Jakarta than New York. Banks are positioning to benefit – while keeping an eye on next year’s elections.
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AsiamoneyInvestors in Asia are still reeling from the shock write-off of Credit Suisse’s additional tier-1 bonds, threatening future demand for the product from the region’s ultra-wealthy.
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How on earth, in this environment, did the bank deliver one of its best-ever quarters in Asia?
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Fund managers see big opportunities in Asia’s private credit market.
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Banks and bond investors are waking up to the difficulty of recovering their money from Indonesian companies that have been hit by the pandemic. Here’s what creditors need to know.
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Hong Kong’s tough line on Spacs is intended to protect investors and stop low-calibre companies from getting a listing via the backdoor. With just two Spac IPOs so far in the city, the asset class has struggled to attract the kind of enthusiasm seen in other markets such as the US.
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The combination of China’s crackdown on technology companies, its zero-Covid strategy and its domestic property crisis have buffeted Chinese stocks this year. In order for sentiment to stabilize and for the economy to develop, reforms are needed urgently, putting more emphasis on the private sector and less on GDP growth.
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AsiamoneyAsia’s capital markets have swung from euphoria to despair in the past year. The days of bumper deal flow are over, now followed by a relative drought – cancelled or smaller trades, market volatility, and talk of the need to trim back large teams. Heading into the second half of the year, the mood is set to get even grimmer.
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Uzbekistan promises to transform its stock and bond markets in an effort to lure much-needed capital from abroad. Roadshows, tax cuts and easing of restrictions are on the agenda as Tashkent prepares to sell off state assets.
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Cambodia’s government, central bank and financial institutions rose to the challenge of mitigating the impact of the pandemic, with some success. There is more work to be done – but a growing focus on innovation and digitalization could herald a new beginning.
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Two critical developments in China caught the financial markets off guard in 2021.
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The chief executive of Malaysia’s HelloGold is on an important mission: to make the global gold market accessible to all.
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Malaysia’s hopes of political and economic reform proved short-lived. The appointment of a new prime minister means the discredited political party UMNO is back in the driving seat.
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AsiamoneyAsian lenders have often balked at dividend recaps. They should reconsider.
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Cambodia’s stock exchange is working hard to increase its appeal to small and medium-sized enterprises. Could 2021 be the year when those efforts pay off?
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At the first hint of crisis, Mongolia usually reaches out to the IMF for financial help. Not this time. Ulaanbaatar reacted swiftly to the Covid pandemic. It is set to emerge from a tough time with its reputation and its finances enhanced.
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How should investors navigate Asia’s stock markets in a post-pandemic world? The discovery of vaccines brings hope that we can eventually resume normal life. Asiamoney spoke to the winning strategists in our Brokers Poll to find out what advice they are giving to clients in their own countries.
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Kakaobank did not exist four years ago. Now, it is an integral part of Korea’s banking sector. The next big step for the digital dynamo is its $3 billion IPO, slated for late 2021.
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Too many Chinese investors focus on the originator more than the asset pool. That undermines one of the crucial purposes of securitization.
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China’s decision to clamp down on Ant Group has derailed an IPO of at least $34 billion, despite execution being finished last week. The move appears to be little more than political muscle-flexing by Beijing. The real winners will be the country’s critics.
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Ant Group’s choice of Hong Kong and Shanghai for its listing signals how flush the two markets are with liquidity. But the upcoming US presidential elections have issuers worried.
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There’s a team made up of staff from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the department of finance who call themselves ‘the Road to A’. They are tasked with completing a long journey for the sovereign credit rating: from BB- as recently as 2009, through BBB+ today, to achieving an A rating.
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The country’s economy has not been this hard hit since the Asian financial crisis. Political instability, global tensions and weak productivity mean the recovery is going to be slow – and painful.
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Erick Thohir once owned the Italian football team InterMilan. Now Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo has handed him one of the country’s toughest jobs: reforming creaking state-owned enterprises. If he succeeds, he could even get a shot at the presidency.
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Creative strategies to avoid the appearance of non-payment are becoming more common in China’s domestic bond market. That leaves many investors at a disadvantage and uncertain of their rights.
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This year’s winners of the Asiamoney Brokers Poll had to navigate myriad challenges, from trade tensions between the US and China to uncertainty around global growth. They managed to find exciting investment opportunities by quickly adapting to the changing market conditions – something they will need to do in 2020 as well.
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When a bank performs well during a strong year for equity markets, it’s easy to say it is just going with the flow, but when a firm gives clients the best advice during turbulent times, it proves its worth.
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The government has big ambitions when it comes to the financial sector, but a second stock exchange, launched as part of a bold plan to turn the country into a Dubai on the Steppes, is a big ask when it comes to developing the nation’s capital markets.
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With five prime ministers and five treasurers in six years, Australia’s top two political offices have been likened to an AirBnB short-let, but with an election looming, can the new treasurer Josh Frydenberg keep his surging opponent Chris Bowen from again becoming the country’s top economic policymaker?
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Malaysia’s new finance minister thinks the country’s recent elections were a Berlin Wall-style moment for the country. If Malaysia is to make a fresh start, does Lim Guan Eng have the tools he needs?
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The country is famously extending its reach across the Eurasian continent, building infrastructure and more for the benefit of itself and the countries the Silk Road passes through.
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It is perhaps no surprise that in a supposedly democratic nation that has been ruled by generals for 33 of its 71 years of independence, the military has an outsized role in Pakistan’s economy.
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The world sees Rodrigo Duterte as a hothead populist, waging a bloody drugs war against insurgents, but to most of his compatriots, he’s the reformer the country needs. His aims, including shaking up taxes to pay for infrastructure and targeting an energy revolution, are bold. His choices for the crucial finance ministry and central bank roles look sound. But will they succeed?