Daily Briefing: DBS to expand foothold in China's debt capital markets; VC firm VisVires to launch US100m fund in 2019

And 80 shops in Plaza Singapura hit by power disruption.

From Bloomberg Asia:

DBS will target first-time bond issuers to the offshore market as it is expanding its fixed-income business in China.

The bank recently set up a debt capital market product and advisory team in China to focus on getting more local clients, Clifford Lee, head of fixed income at DBS Group, said in an interview. It will be run by three bankers in Shanghai and Beijing led by Cleaven Yu, who was appointed head of its China fixed-income origination team in June, he said.

"We expect that China’s need for debt financing will only continue to grow, driven by factors such as the country’s rising bank capital and infrastructure financing needs," said Lee.

Chinese borrowers have been the dominant force for Asia’s dollar bond issuance, making up about 60 percent of the $198 billion of notes sold so far this year, Bloomberg-compiled data show. DBS currently ranks 10th amongst the bond managers with 81 bonds, of which more than half are from Chinese companies.

Read more here.

From Deal Street Asia:

Singapore-based VC firm VisVires New Protein Capital mulls to roll out a $136.60m (US$100m) second fund in 2019 following its $54.64m (US$40m) fund closing in June.

VisVires is one of the few venture capital firms in Asia with an extremely niche focus – technologies for the global food and feed system. It seeks to identify and back startups solving an array of food-related issues along the entire supply chain.

What we need today is an entire change of the global food system. The technology, the science, the business model within the food industry. We try to identify bottlenecks that are really important for the industry and find solutions from there,” said VisVires founder Matthieu Vermersch.

Vermersch is confident that VisVires’ proposed second fund will find backing from LPs in its first fund. The debut vehicle was backed by family offices and an unnamed corporate investor. Due to its global scope, VisVires has no trouble finding deals despite its niche investment focus, he added.

Read more here.

From Channel News Asia

Around 80 shops operating in Plaza Singapura experienced an electrical shutdown which was longer than the scheduled plan, making the shops do business in darkness from morning until early afternoon and with no air conditioning until evening.

According to a CapitaLand memo sent to tenants at The Atrium @ Orchard, the shopping mall management had scheduled an electrical shutdown for maintenance works from 11.30 pm on 22 September to 8 am on 23 September.

Tenants were advised to arrange for alternative power sources or provide separate arrangements for their frozen food and perishable items.
Responding to a query from Channel NewsAsia, General Manager of Plaza Singapura June Ang said an “unforeseen delay” caused power supply to return gradually only from 2.15 pm.

Read more here.