China Shipping Nauticgreen Shelves USD 192 million IPO

World stock markets around the globe continue to fall sharply since Standard & Poor’s downgraded American debt for the first time in history last Friday, as fears that the twin debt crises in the US and Europe could drive the world economy into recession continue to shake investors’ confidence. Others believe that the markets are over-reacting and have accused large individual investors of “coordinated short-selling attacks” and preying on fragile market sentiments, which have prompted some countries to look into implementing a total ban on naked short selling, in order to stabilize the stock markets.

Without surprise, the market volatility has forced several IPO issuers to delay or drop plans to raise equity. China Shipping Nauticgreen, the container leasing unit of state-owned China Shipping Group, has postponed its plans to raise up to HKD 1.5 billion (USD 192 million) in Hong Kong, until market conditions improve. This decision was made despite the fact that the appointed bookrunners, China Merchants Securities and Deutsche Bank, were able to sell the entire institutional tranche after two days of book-building that began on August 1. Continue Reading

Written by: rwong | Categories: Asia, Equity | August 11th, 2011 | Add a Comment

Bottoming Out?

Over the past week, we have experienced the first market rally from a recession trough. Asian stock markets rallied to some of their highest since mid October as investors take confidence in China’s economic recovery. The manufacturing purchasing managers’ index in China rose from 44.8 in March to 51.1 in April, passing the 50-point mark that separates contraction and expansion for the first time in 9 months.

In a market report published last Friday, JP Morgan presented an optimistic view, suggesting that “we are indeed very close to the bottom in global economic activity, and may already be there, with the world economy set to start expanding again in coming months” but acknowledged that there are still many inherent risks since banks and households are still in balance sheet repair mode and a swine flu pandemic cannot be ruled out. Continue Reading