When the commodities trading house Trafigura opted to sell its first-ever bond in China this week, it shunned the public market and instead selected a handful of investors to invest in its three-year panda bond.
The Rmb500 million $78.6 million bond sale, which was conducted via a private placement, rekindles interest in a so far rarely used funding channel for foreign companies and issuers looking to borrow from a subset of the $9.5 trillion Chinese debt market, the world's third-largest after the US and Japan.
With a private transaction in China, the lead manager will typically reach out to a group of about 20...