Agricultural Bank of China held a kick-off meeting for its US$20bn-plus A/H IPO in Beijing today.

Agricultural Bank of China held a kick-off meeting for its US$20bn-plus A/H IPO in Beijing today. According to sources, the fundraising size has not been determined as yet but the deal could come as early as July. The lender has mandated CICC, CAF Securities, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Macquarie and Morgan Stanley as bookrunners for the H-share IPO and CICC, Citic Securities, Galaxy Securities and Guotai Junan Securities as leads for the A-share IPO.

 

Sijia Group has fixed the offer price for its Hong Kong IPO at HK$3.28 apiece, in the upper end of the marketed HK$2.69–$3.38 range. The deal comprises 200m new shares to raise HK$656m (US$84.3m). Hong Kong public offer will start tomorrow. Piper Jaffray is the bookrunner. Sijia is principally engaged in the design, development, manufacture and sale of polymer processed high strength polyester fabric composite materials.

 

Only 18% of the holders of Country Garden's RMB4.3bn US dollar settled 2.5% CBs due 2013 have tendered back their bonds to the company under a buyback offer. The company received only tenders worth RMB781m and it said in a press release it was pleased with the response. The company offered bondholders about 111 and some rival bankers thought the price was low and that's why response was not that great. "I can't think of many exams where the pass mark is 18.1%," said one banker.

 

At launch, the bonds were trading at 108.5 and the accreted value of the bonds or the value of the bonds after adding the interest payments from issue to April 7 was 108.25. Bondholders would have got paid 111.997 if they had held the bonds until put which was up in a year. One banker argued that the fact that few bonds were tendered also showed that investors who had not tendered had the confidence of getting paid when the put date came up.

 

GMR Infrastructure has launched an up to US$250m QIP. Bank of America Merrill Lynch is the sole global coordinator and bookrunning lead manager. Other lead managers are Axis Bank, ICICI Securities, IDBI Capital Market Services. The indicative price is Rs62.20 close to the Sebi floor price of Rs62.13. The close today was Rs63.85 on BSE.

 

Hong Kong and Nasdaq-listed City Telecom launched an ADR follow-on today. The deal comprises 3.5m shares and a 15% greenshoe. Based on the company's last closing price of US$15.23 apiece in the US, the deal could raise US$53m. Proceeds will be used to launch the company's new domestic free television program services in Hong Kong and for general corporate purposes. Oppenheimer and Roth Capital Partners are leading the transaction.

 

Shanghai-listed Industrial Bank has received the CSRC approval to raise Rmb18bn (US$2.64bn) by selling rights shares on a two-for-10 basis. Proceeds will replenish the bank's core capital, boosting its core capital adequacy ratio to more than 10%.

 

Shanghai-listed Hua Xia Bank went into trading halt yesterday. Rumours are that the lender is looking to raise up to Rmb20bn (US$2.93bn) through a private placement to raise its capital adequacy ratio. Deutsche Bank, Shougang Corporation and the State Grid, the three largest shareholders of Hua Xia Bank, are expected to participate in the placement.

 

Shenzhen-listed Hubei Yihua Chemical Industry is looking to raise Rmb2.5bn (US$366m) through a private placement by selling up to 150m shares at not less than Rmb18.51 apiece. Parent Yihua Group has committed to subscribe to 16% of the deal. Of the funds raised, Rmb2bn will be used for project development while Rmb500m for bank loans repayment.

 

SGX-listed UNITED Envirotech, which provides membrane-based water and wastewater treatment services in China, is looking at a dual listing in Taiwan by selling TDRs. The TDR issuance will represent 10% of the company's enlarged share capital. It has mandated Polaris Securities on the deal.

 

Citic Securities, China's largest brokerage by market value, and Credit Agricole SA's Asian brokerage affiliate are in talks to create a venture in the region, according to a mainland newspaper. CLSA is expected to be part of the combined entity.

 

Taihan Electric Wire, which manufactures power and communications cables, has set the price for its follow-on offering at W10,750 per share to raise W184bn (US166m). The price was calculated as a 20% discount to the three-day VWAP to April 14 and was lower than the expected price of W13,650 per share given in the offering circular. The deal size is equivalent to 30% of existing company capital. The company's shares lost 3.4% today to close at W12,850. Subscription runs from April 19–20 and settlement is on April 22. The new shares will list on May 3. Daewoo Securities, Hana Daetoo and Tong Yang are lead managers.

 

The April 14 selldown by the Beneficial Trust Fund of PLDT in Metro Pacific Investment Corporation was partially upsized to 1.4bn shares from the base deal size of 1.1bn shares, equivalent to around 7% of company capital. This gives a final deal size of Ps4.2bn (US$95m), based on the fixed price of Ps3.00 per share, a 3.2% discount to the April 14 close. More than 20 accounts took part. There was demand from Philippine, Asian, UK and US investors. Allocations went principally to long-only investors but there was some hedge fund participation. CLSA was sole bookrunner. Metro Pacific Investment Corporation holds investments in water, tollroads and healthcare companies.

 

Developer Ayala Land is looking to raise US$300m from a REIT, once the country's laws on the asset class are finalised. It has hired JP Morgan and BPI Capital as advisers. Robinson Land is rumoured to have hired Citi as an adviser.

 

Telekomunikasi Indonesia said it will transfer around 9,000 telecom towers from its mobile subsidiary Telkomsel to its infrastructure unit Dayamitra Telekomunikasi (Mitratel). The move needs to happen because Singtel owns a 35% stake in Telkomsel and foreign firms are not allowed to own Indonesian telecoms infrastructure. Telkom's president director Rinaldi Firmansyah told local media that Macquarie is advising on the sale of the towers. After the sale, Telkom plans to launch an IPO for Mitratel, though it is not expected in the near future.

 

Philippine conglomerate San Miguel is seeking shareholder approval to allow the management to issue new shares without attendant pre-emptive rights for existing shareholders. The board is also seeking approval to sell down more than 51% of the company's stakes in its core businesses. The votes will be held in May.

 

Shares in vegetable processor China Minzhong Food opened at S$1.20 per share on its trading debut, flat to its IPO price. It closed at S$1.12, down 6.7%.

 

System integrator CSE Global yesterday raised S$39.2m (US$28.5m) from a placement of 35m treasury shares, equivalent to 7.36% of existing issued shares. The price of S$1.12 per share is a 5.9% discount to the last traded price of S$1.19. Around 65% of the book went to long-only investors, 18% to hedge funds, 11% to private bank clients and the remainder to retail. Singaporean investors accounted for 75% of the allocations, with Hong Kong investors taking 25%, Europe 5% and others 5%. CIMB was placement agent.

 

Citi announced the appointment of Ravi Kapoor as the new head of global banking India. In this role, Kapoor will report to Pramit Jhaveri, Citi country officer, India, and Farhan Faruqui, head of global banking, Asia Pacific. The appointment is effective immediately.

 

Nathan McMurtray who was announced as joining Citi in March has taken up the job of head of Asia equity-linked at Standard Chartered. He started work on Monday. Mcmurtray joined from Standard Bank in Hong Kong where he was head of Asia equity-linked origination. Prior to this he was at Morgan Stanley from 2000–2009.