Amid particularly tense Sino-Japanese relations, the US$3.1 billion IPO of mainland insurer PICC Group is all the more remarkable in that it included a rare tranche, solely targeted at Japanese investors.
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The past few weeks have seen widespread announcements of share buy-backs, as companies, often with net cash balances, take advantage of a depressed market to pick up cheap stock.
HONG KONG (Dow Jones Investment Banker) – Japanese fashion retailer Baroque Japan Ltd. is eyeing an IPO of up to US$300 million in Hong Kong, through CLSA and UBS. It may perhaps be better advised to wait until its international store network becomes wider, and the brand more mature.
HONG KONG (Dow Jones Investment Banker) – Public offerings without listing (POWLs) have for a decade been used to channel Japanese retail financial assets – about half of which are held in the form of cash in bank or post office deposits – towards international primary equity offerings. But do POWLs as they stand really add value to new issues?
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HONG KONG (Dow Jones Investment Banker) – It’s been an eventful week in the otherwise cozy world of stock exchanges. But to what extent will the latest round of M&A benefit ECM bankers who underwrite stock offerings for their clients?
HONG KONG (Dow Jones Investment Banker) – Singapore Exchange Ltd (SGX), dwarfed by a number of its Asian rivals, is sparing no efforts to compete on a regional stage. But its introduction of remote trading is likely to have only a marginal impact.
HONG KONG (Dow Jones Investment Banker) – Logically, there’s reason to offer around-the-clock trading on securities: Investors can trade from their home turf some of their large holdings. But Vale S.A.’s Hong Kong listing shows the value of such an option is questionable in practice.
According to its website, the number of foreign companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (the TSE) has fallen to its lowest level since 1985. The highest number of foreign listed corporates was 127 in April 1991, although this has now dropped to 12 (ten of which only on the First Section of the TSE), with the recent de-listings in 2010 by Aegon N.V. from the Netherlands, UBS from Switzerland, and Deutsche Telekom AG from Germany.
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