Lotte Shopping brings Asia’s first equity-linked deal this year

Asia’s equity-linked market was given a boost yesterday when two new issues hit the market within hours of each other. The deals raised a combined $806 million and added to the hopes that 2013 will be a better year for new issuance than 2012, which, according to Dealogic, saw a mere $7.3 billion of new paper in Asia outside China’s A-share market.

First out was Korean department store operator Lotte Shopping, which launched a relatively well-flagged bond that is exchangeable into Lotte Himart, the retailer of consumer electronics that it bought a majority stake in last year. The deal was denominated in Korean won, although settled in US dollars, and...