Safeway Concessions has been sold to VINCI Highways, a subsidiary of VINCI.

Two M&A deals in Australia’s financial services sector hit major turbulence in March, underlining some of the recent challenges in completing deals, including higher interest rates and the war in the Middle East.

Despite changes to regulations, Hong Kong IPOs are still set to remain robust this year with six firms already listing this week, according to Frank Bi, Asia head of corporate transactions at law firm Ashurst.

Recent deals have involved hotel, food delivery and energy assets from firms in Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan and Thailand. Japanese corporates are seeking diversification in western markets.

Despite growing investor confidence, a challenging fundraising environment in the region persists. The role of AI in deals is gaining in importance.

As investors show more confidence in China's onshore bond market, Singapore's UOB priced a three-year panda bond at 1.83% on March 18, while Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas also issued panda bonds worth over Rmb5bn this month.

Across four tranches, it the Singapore firm's inaugural Australian issuance and continues the infrastructure platform's fundraising momentum with its largest private placement.

With the HKMA close to issuing licences, yuan-linked stablecoins could help boost the internationalisation of the Chinese currency.

The logistics and real estate business, which has operations in Singapore and Japan, raised S$1.2bn on the main exchange but listed in a difficult week for equities amid war in the Middle East.