Shares in global payment networks Visa (V.NYSE) and MasterCard (MA.NYSE) jumped Wednesday following an announcement of new rules from China’s State Council that clear the way for both to gain a foothold in the mainland clearing service market, Bloomberg reported. The rules, which take effect June 1, are the most explicit Beijing has been about […]
Category: Banking & Finance
State-owned China Petrochemical Corp., aka Sinopec Group, has raised US$6.4 billion through a bond sale that ranked as the third-largest in Asia on record, The Wall Street Journal reported. By tapping European investors Sinopec was able borrow at costs as low as 0.5% and 1% for three and seven-year bonds totaling EUR1.5 billion (US$1.6 billion), […]
Preliminary bidders including UBS (UBSN.VTX), Temasek Holdings and BNP Paribas (BNP.EPA) have purchased a 10% stake in the state-owned Postal Savings Bank of China for at least US$3 billion, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources. Sources said half a dozen preliminary bidders had bought into PBSC, China’s biggest bank by outlets with about 40,000 branches throughout […]
Five foreign fund managers have been approved to set up local firms in China to raise yuan from both institutional and individual investors to spend on alternative assets overseas, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources. The approval came in February for the firms, which including UBS Global Asset Management and Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management and are […]
State-owned Baoding Tianwei Group became the first such firm to default in China’s domestic bond market when it announced that it had missed a Tuesday deadline to pay roughly US$14 million in interest due on bonds worth US$242 million, The New York Times reported. The power equipment manufacturer’s default calls into question the popular assumption […]