There have been several jumbo IPOs in the Asia Pacific over the past few years through to the first half of 2008. The drivers of this supply were Indian and Chinese companies taking advantage of continued economic growth and investor enthusiasm for exposure in the rising fortunes of the developing world. This gung-ho mentality was sadly short-lived as these companies’ post-listing performances were disastrous, inflation touched new highs with the advent of recession and the financial sector coll

Extreme risk aversion among G3 investors combined with severe caution among the regions’ DCM bankers forced a virtual market closure. Meanwhile, Asia’s cash-heavy investors appeared more or less oblivious to the unfolding global financial crisis and had no fear of putting their money to work. This news will have been music to the ears of the region’s finance ministers, who work in the shadow of the Asian financial crisis and the dangers inherent in the double mismatch of tenor and currency which

Innes forecasted Asia’s economy would expand 1.9% this year, down from 4.2% in 2008. In the Asia Pacific, growth would be slightly lower, at 1.8%, while Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, will expand 4%, down from 6.2% in 2008. Asia will continue to outperform the rest of the world, however, which is set to expand just 0.5% in 2009 as it struggles against US$1tn in credit-related losses. These forecasts mark a sharp reversal from the burgeoning growth rates of the past decade when Asia’s emerging ec

The global financial crisis has come to Asia and 2009 looks set to be a year of pain for Asian economies. If optimists were talking a year ago about how Asia had decoupled from the US and European economies, today they understand more fully what it means to live in a globalised word. Asia is set grow at its slowest rate for 18 years and it is far from certain that the hundreds of billions of dollars of stimulus money the region’s governments are spending will do little more than cushion the impa

Asian loan markets have gotten off to the worst possible start in 2009 with very little activity being registered in January. It did not help that the Lunar New Year holidays fell in late January, which meant that activity in north Asia almost ground to a halt in the three-week period between the start of the calendar year and the Lunar New Year holidays. Making matters worse is the financial crisis, which has put a high price on liquidity and heightened the sense of risk-aversion among lenders.

It is clear that although there may be one-off deals from other countries, securitisation issuance out of Asia in 2009 will be dominated by three markets: China, South Korea and Australia. China will grow steadily but not exponentially in 2009. The past two years have been incredibly buoyant thanks to the approval of China's Rmb60bn pilot securitisation projects in 2006. There was Rmb17.65bn (US$2.52bn) issuance from four securitised deals in 2007 and Rmb27.39bn from five pilot schemes as well a