New World’s new dawn
On the eve of China’s Golden Week holiday, New World Development finally capped months of speculation: it would officially hand over to Hong Kong’s airport authority its 11 SKIES mall, a hugely ambitious — and increasingly costly — project that had simultaneously become both an albatross and a white elephant.
Shedding the heavy commitments attached to the mall would indeed provide short-term relief for the debt-laden developer. Long-term, however, buy-side investors remain unsure whether it signals a turnaround.
Read the full story here.
New direction
Taiwanese lenders are getting to grips with a term that’s been unfamiliar of late: pricing expansion.
Fierce competition in an over-banked market (Taiwan is home to more than 20 local commercial banks and eight government-owned banks) means the island has become known for offering corporate loans at ever-lower pricing.
That’s now changing amid rising demand for borrowing from tech companies and securities brokerages.
Read the full story here.
Shapoorji latest
India’s Shapoorji Pallonji Group has raised INR 44.5bn ($462m) through a zero-coupon non-convertible debenture (NCD) issue by Mistry family-controlled Eqyizen Investment Pvt Ltd, to help fund Porteast Investment’s INR 35bn mandatory prepayment.
Eqyizen allotted the secured, unrated...
