# Treasury Boosts Debt Buyback, Bonnie Chan on Asia IPO Pipeline

An episode of [Bloomberg Daybreak: Asia Edition](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663863437), 20 Aug 2026, 18 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/58e85be7-dbb5-4043-afed-af80014dc0b3/ed7a23bc-25a8-4fc0-9643-b4ac002a2cb9/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=27143354-63aa-4ac5-965d-af80014dc0d3

Business and finance news from the Asia-Pacific. Asian bonds and stocks gained as US plans to buy back longer-dated Treasuries to curb borrowing costs buoyed sentiment. The dollar steadied after sliding to a three-month low. We speak to Lianting Tu, Bloomberg's Managing Editor for Asia Equities. And - Initial public offering pipeline remains strong with close to 10 international companies from regions in Asia and the Middle East. That is according to Bonnie Chan, Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Executive Director and CEO. She spoke to Bloomberg's Minmin Low. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. Welcome to the Daybreak
[0:11] Speaker 1: Asia podcast. I'm deg Krisner. The US Treasury shocked markets
[0:15] Speaker 1: on Tuesday with a plan to increase buybacks of longer
[0:18] Speaker 1: dated government bonds. Current buyback operations will be at least
[0:22] Speaker 1: doubled across the ten and thirty year segment. Now, this
[0:26] Speaker 1: is a very forceful move on the part of Treasury
[0:28] Speaker 1: Secretary Besent as a way of lowering borrowing cost after
[0:32] Speaker 1: yields hit multi decade highs. So we had to drop
[0:35] Speaker 1: in US yields right across the curve, and not surprisingly,
[0:40] Speaker 1: those moves in turn weekened the dollar. We had the
[0:42] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index down about eight tenths of one
[0:45] Speaker 1: percent in New York trading to the lowest level in
[0:48] Speaker 1: around three months. And with that dollar weakness, a much
[0:51] Speaker 1: stronger yen the end strengthening in New York trading by
[0:54] Speaker 1: around eight tenths of one percent. For a closer look
[0:57] Speaker 1: at what we're seeing in the Asia Pacific, let's bring
[0:59] Speaker 1: in Bloomberg ex Leon tink Ii, who is Managing editor
[1:02] Speaker 1: for Asia Equities. She joins from our studios in Singapore.
[1:06] Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. There's a lot to talk about,
[1:09] Speaker 1: and eventually I want to make our way into a
[1:11] Speaker 1: conversation around the chip makers. What do you make of
[1:15] Speaker 1: this move on the part of Besin to try to
[1:17] Speaker 1: manipulate if I can use that term, manipulate the US
[1:20] Speaker 1: Treasury curve.
[1:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we are talking to a lot of
[1:24] Speaker 2: fund managers about what they see about this move. A
[1:28] Speaker 2: lot of them are talking about, Yeah, it is indeed
[1:31] Speaker 2: positive for us. You know, bond prisis right now effective
[1:37] Speaker 2: in the near term. But the debate is about the
[1:40] Speaker 2: credibility of the you know, of Bacente, who is the
[1:44] Speaker 2: head of US Treasury. And this kind of so called
[1:48] Speaker 2: the manipulation or meddling in the market goes again as
[1:51] Speaker 2: to the market expectation for the Treasury to be predictable
[1:54] Speaker 2: and steady, and so in the longer term this may
[1:58] Speaker 2: not be a good thing. And some people are already
[2:01] Speaker 2: saying it's probably better for Besson to go back to
[2:04] Speaker 2: managing money. So yeah, so basically in the near term
[2:08] Speaker 2: it's good for bond prices, but in the longer term, yeah,
[2:11] Speaker 2: there's a lot to be considered.
[2:13] Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about the weakness that we had
[2:15] Speaker 1: in the chip makers. At least that was the case
[2:18] Speaker 1: in New York trading, where the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was
[2:21] Speaker 1: down about two percent after falling five percent on Tuesday.
[2:25] Speaker 1: But we're seeing some positivity right now among chip makers
[2:28] Speaker 1: in South Korea. Can you give me a sense of
[2:30] Speaker 1: what's happening in Seoul.
[2:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a pretty big number that came out
[2:36] Speaker 2: of s KHINIS late yesterday in Asia talking about the buybacks,
[2:42] Speaker 2: about twenty nine billion dollars buying back from August to November.
[2:47] Speaker 2: So that's that's a pretty decent amount. And they're also
[2:51] Speaker 2: talking about how they're going to commit to at least
[2:55] Speaker 2: fifty percent of their accumulative free cash flow from twenty
[2:59] Speaker 2: twenty five to twenty twenty seven to be returned to shareholders.
[3:03] Speaker 2: They also said that they are going to announce more
[3:06] Speaker 2: dividend paybacks and also payouts, I should say, and also
[3:10] Speaker 2: more details on the buybacks in their third quarter earnings call.
[3:15] Speaker 2: So all of these things are basically sending a strong
[3:18] Speaker 2: signal to investors. Korean companies that have been making a
[3:22] Speaker 2: lot of money from this memory tip crunch is now
[3:26] Speaker 2: following the footsteps of US companies or usps that are
[3:31] Speaker 2: thinking more about shareholder returns, and that could work as
[3:35] Speaker 2: a catalyst for people to re rate the shares of
[3:39] Speaker 2: s Khannis, for example, and also some some potentially, because
[3:43] Speaker 2: there's also a lot of expectations for some some to
[3:46] Speaker 2: follow suit. Quite a few brokers have come out with
[3:49] Speaker 2: notes talking about how much they expect some some to
[3:53] Speaker 2: return to shareholders. So that's definitely, you know, a big thing.
[3:57] Speaker 2: If some are indeed follow suit, then the corporate culture,
[4:01] Speaker 2: corporate governance, I think for Korea is worth a bit
[4:04] Speaker 2: of a reconsideration of my investors because they typically haven't
[4:08] Speaker 2: been thinking about shareholders.
[4:10] Speaker 1: So if we look at the case of both s
[4:12] Speaker 1: k Heiniz and Samsung, obviously this is a big part
[4:15] Speaker 1: of the AI build out story because both companies manufacture
[4:19] Speaker 1: those high bandwidth memory chips and we have a big
[4:23] Speaker 1: take in the Bloomberg technology space discussing the US lead
[4:28] Speaker 1: in the AI race with China is rapidly narrowing. So
[4:33] Speaker 1: talk to me a little bit about some of the
[4:35] Speaker 1: advancements that you're paying attention to when it comes to
[4:38] Speaker 1: AI on the Chinese mainland.
[4:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, there's just so much going on. We've got a
[4:45] Speaker 2: new model release every other day from various Chinese model makers.
[4:51] Speaker 2: Of course Kimi K three just to shock to the
[4:55] Speaker 2: world where their capabilities about a month ago. And we've
[4:59] Speaker 2: got Ali Baba's Quan which basically had a lot of
[5:04] Speaker 2: downloads right, three billion downloads of the of that model,
[5:08] Speaker 2: which beats you know, Anthropic and Google. So I would
[5:12] Speaker 2: say the key advantage is that overall these models do
[5:17] Speaker 2: bring costs for users down by a significant amount. I
[5:22] Speaker 2: think that Big Take, as you mentioned, had some very
[5:24] Speaker 2: good examples of how much consumers can save by using
[5:29] Speaker 2: Chinese models. One you know, implication of that is that
[5:34] Speaker 2: means Chinese models are really not making money. Right. The
[5:37] Speaker 2: monitorization path is very uncertain for these companies, but that
[5:43] Speaker 2: also doesn't seem to be their key concern right now.
[5:45] Speaker 2: All they want to do is to gain market share.
[5:48] Speaker 2: Maybe they're they think about other sort of related services
[5:52] Speaker 2: in the end to to monetize. So it is it
[5:56] Speaker 2: is uncertain, But if you look at who may be
[6:00] Speaker 2: somewhat of a winner down the road, A lot of
[6:02] Speaker 2: people are talking about Ali Baba because it's not just
[6:06] Speaker 2: a model maker. It has its AI chips, it has
[6:10] Speaker 2: cloud infrastructure, It also has some other core businesses such
[6:14] Speaker 2: as e commerce, so it has it's probably the only
[6:18] Speaker 2: full stack AI company in China, and the cloud business
[6:23] Speaker 2: that is a bright spot for Ali Baba. It's got
[6:25] Speaker 2: the market share of one third in China and that's
[6:28] Speaker 2: a fast, very fast growing business in the AI space.
[6:32] Speaker 2: So that is a big area that investors will be
[6:36] Speaker 2: watching out for when it announces earnings later today.
[6:40] Speaker 1: Speaking of earnings, Hong Kong Stock Exchange reported a twenty
[6:44] Speaker 1: one percent rise in second quarter net income and as
[6:47] Speaker 1: I understand that a lot of that had to do
[6:49] Speaker 1: with a big increase that we have had in initial
[6:52] Speaker 1: public offerings in Hong Kong. Is that another example of
[6:56] Speaker 1: the AI story.
[6:58] Speaker 2: Exactly Ai Scott is foot print or fingerprint everywhere. Writ
[7:03] Speaker 2: when it comes to IPO in the ECM market in
[7:06] Speaker 2: Hong Kong, I should say it's it's pretty much all
[7:08] Speaker 2: about AI mainly or the mainland AI companies either they
[7:14] Speaker 2: uh those that have already listed in China are doing
[7:17] Speaker 2: a secondary listing in Hong Kong, or they just come
[7:20] Speaker 2: to Hong Kong directly for an I PO. And yeah,
[7:25] Speaker 2: we have quite a robust pipeline. We're expecting some of
[7:30] Speaker 2: the optical fiber makers to come to the market. There's
[7:34] Speaker 2: one that have already listed in Hong Kong called John
[7:38] Speaker 2: G in the Light. I believe that was an eight
[7:40] Speaker 2: billion dollar secondary listing, and we're expecting two other market
[7:45] Speaker 2: leaders in that space to come to Hong Kong as well,
[7:47] Speaker 2: so we're talking about potentially three billion to five billion
[7:50] Speaker 2: dollar deals each. And then there's also a non AI space,
[7:54] Speaker 2: a non AI player I should say, a bit of
[7:56] Speaker 2: outlier shi In, which is a retailer. I don't know
[7:59] Speaker 2: if remember them being valued at one hundred billion valuation
[8:05] Speaker 2: a few years ago. That one now probably valued at
[8:08] Speaker 2: about twenty seven billion, but it's coming to the market.
[8:10] Speaker 2: We're expecting she to finally get listed in Hong Kong
[8:15] Speaker 2: at the end of this month or early next month.
[8:17] Speaker 2: So or in all, Hong Kong's ECM volume this year
[8:21] Speaker 2: can potentially be a record high at this rate. So
[8:25] Speaker 2: no wonder HKX is having a very good quarter.
[8:29] Speaker 1: As long as we're talking about initial public offerings, maybe
[8:32] Speaker 1: before we let you go, we can touch upon Unitary Robotics,
[8:36] Speaker 1: which had an IPO earlier in the week in Shanghai
[8:39] Speaker 1: and a pretty phenomenal debut. I think a return of
[8:43] Speaker 1: something greater than four hundred and sixty percent. What's happening
[8:46] Speaker 1: with the stock?
[8:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, indeed that I wouldn't say that was surprising when
[8:53] Speaker 2: it comes to a mainland ipo, Yeah, because there isn't
[8:58] Speaker 2: some kind of expectation that regularly tend to keep the
[9:02] Speaker 2: valuations artificially low so that retail investors don't lose out.
[9:08] Speaker 2: Mainland IPOs tend to have that kind of huge pops
[9:11] Speaker 2: that you don't see anywhere else in the world. When
[9:14] Speaker 2: it comes to Uni Tree one, you know, main thing
[9:18] Speaker 2: is really they are the first humanoid robot company to
[9:21] Speaker 2: be listed in China, one of the biggest. They are profitable,
[9:26] Speaker 2: which is rare in that industry. But if you look
[9:29] Speaker 2: at the negative side, there's a lot of competitors in
[9:33] Speaker 2: that space, right China is just always if there is
[9:37] Speaker 2: a hot sector, you see other people coming into play.
[9:40] Speaker 2: So I think down the road, it's a sector that
[9:43] Speaker 2: we have to expect, you know, margin compression and even
[9:48] Speaker 2: profit erosion. And if you look at the stock today,
[9:51] Speaker 2: it's losing I believe lost. I checked twelve percent. I
[9:54] Speaker 2: mean nothing major compared with the first day pops. So
[9:58] Speaker 2: we'll see how it goes, but I think eventually for
[10:02] Speaker 2: that industry, investors are still sort of looking at whether
[10:06] Speaker 2: the robots can be consistently reliable to perform a task
[10:11] Speaker 2: on the factory floor. They may look very impressive in
[10:14] Speaker 2: the spring festival gala performing kung fu or in some
[10:17] Speaker 2: kind of dance. Yeah, but in the end they have
[10:20] Speaker 2: to earn their keep on a factory floor.
[10:23] Speaker 1: Those videos have been particularly impressive. Leon Ting, thank you
[10:27] Speaker 1: so very much, Bloomberg's Leonting II, Managing Editor of Asia Equities.
[10:32] Speaker 1: Joining from our studio in Singapore here on the Daybreak
[10:35] Speaker 1: Asia podcast. Welcome back to the Daybreak Asia Podcast. Time
[10:47] Speaker 1: Dog Prisner. The latest quarterly results from Hong Kong Stock
[10:51] Speaker 1: Exchange beat market expectations. We're talking about a twenty one
[10:55] Speaker 1: percent rise in second quarter net income. Now, these results
[10:59] Speaker 1: were fueled by robust trading volumes as well as a
[11:02] Speaker 1: jump in initial public offerings. We caught up with Bonnie Chan.
[11:06] Speaker 1: She is the CEO at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing.
[11:09] Speaker 1: She spoke with Bloomberg's Minmen. Low and Min Men started
[11:12] Speaker 1: the conversation with a question about the IPO pipeline.
[11:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, I get that question a lot. You know, how
[11:18] Speaker 3: is there competition right between HKX and the few stock
[11:24] Speaker 3: exchanges on the Chinese mainland. I actually see our relationship
[11:28] Speaker 3: quite differently. It's complementary. Well. On the face it seems
[11:33] Speaker 3: that we're competing, right, and that's probably based on the
[11:37] Speaker 3: assumption that a company can only ipl once in their life. However,
[11:41] Speaker 3: I think you have picked it up in many of
[11:44] Speaker 3: your previous reports. There is a growing trend of companies
[11:49] Speaker 3: getting listed on both the Hong Kong market as well
[11:52] Speaker 3: as the Asia market. Now. Some of them have chosen
[11:54] Speaker 3: to do a share listing first and then come to
[11:57] Speaker 3: Hong Kong for and HHA. Others have done HAH share
[12:00] Speaker 3: listing and then return to the Chinese mainland for their
[12:03] Speaker 3: A share. I think regardless of whether you know how
[12:07] Speaker 3: companies want to sequence it the what they're pursuing, you
[12:11] Speaker 3: know when they want to When they decided to list
[12:14] Speaker 3: on both market, it's really expanding their shareholder base.
[12:19] Speaker 4: You launched the HKX take one hundred x last year,
[12:23] Speaker 4: but less than a year on you're looking at making
[12:25] Speaker 4: some adjustments, correct. Could you tell us more about these
[12:28] Speaker 4: adjustments and why you're making them right?
[12:30] Speaker 3: Well, first of all, let me tell you about our
[12:31] Speaker 3: index business and why we're doing it. We certainly think
[12:34] Speaker 3: that as you know, more focused are turning back to
[12:39] Speaker 3: our market, there is a very strong demand from the
[12:42] Speaker 3: investors to want to get access to these indices so
[12:48] Speaker 3: that you know, they can have better benchmarking and referencing.
[12:52] Speaker 3: And therefore, first of all, we do believe that Hong
[12:56] Speaker 3: Kong as a market certainly will benefit from a bigger
[13:00] Speaker 3: variety of indices. And therefore, given how close we are
[13:05] Speaker 3: to the market, we do believe that we are in
[13:07] Speaker 3: a very unique position, uh to to to develop out.
[13:10] Speaker 4: How do you different ship from the existing benchmarks like
[13:14] Speaker 4: the hung thing.
[13:14] Speaker 3: Though, oh well it's quite different, I would say. So
[13:17] Speaker 3: the name suggests s h K extect one hundred index, right,
[13:22] Speaker 3: so the underlying is one hundred stocks, and we deliberately
[13:30] Speaker 3: make it in a way so that it's more diverse,
[13:32] Speaker 3: which we believe is more representative of the makeup of
[13:36] Speaker 3: our market.
[13:36] Speaker 4: Now. I know you have hit back against this criticism
[13:39] Speaker 4: of over concentration of Chinese companies listing here, but it
[13:44] Speaker 4: is the exchange doing more to attract non Chinese companies.
[13:48] Speaker 3: Absolutely, a lot of the companies, especially in the Asian region.
[13:53] Speaker 3: They are because of, you know, the constant need for
[13:59] Speaker 3: assing the capital markets to support their growth. They quite
[14:04] Speaker 3: like the fact that they can access Hong Kong, which
[14:07] Speaker 3: has obviously a deeper liquidity pore. And so you know,
[14:10] Speaker 3: for companies which might have outgrown their domestic market, having
[14:14] Speaker 3: another listing in Hong Kong is very very attractive. Now
[14:17] Speaker 3: in our pipeline, we actually have close to ten companies
[14:21] Speaker 3: which are what we call international companies, and they are
[14:26] Speaker 3: applying for listing in Hong Kong from various regions, not
[14:29] Speaker 3: only Asia and Central Asia. I also want to emphasize
[14:35] Speaker 3: the fact that we are forging a lot of collaboration
[14:38] Speaker 3: with regional exchanges. As you know, I have recently been
[14:41] Speaker 3: to Malaysia with Burst and Malaysia. We signed an MLU
[14:45] Speaker 3: with them in March this year, and we recently recognized
[14:50] Speaker 3: them as a recognized stock exchange, therefore making companies listed
[14:53] Speaker 3: on burs and Malaysia easier to come to Hong Kong
[14:56] Speaker 3: for a secondary listing. And this follows a very long
[15:00] Speaker 3: string of other activities that I've been pursuing. But I
[15:03] Speaker 3: do think that you should expect to hear more about
[15:08] Speaker 3: our progress. You know, in terms of attracting non Chinese
[15:14] Speaker 3: companies to listen on.
[15:15] Speaker 4: It, it sounds like a lot of focuses on Asia.
[15:17] Speaker 4: Are you also targeting other regions like the Middle East
[15:20] Speaker 4: or other parts of the world.
[15:22] Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But you know, the reason that you
[15:25] Speaker 3: hear me talk more about Asia is frankly because of
[15:28] Speaker 3: the point I refer to earlier, which is the fact
[15:31] Speaker 3: that it seems to make me that international investors on
[15:35] Speaker 3: the whole are getting more focused on Asia.
[15:38] Speaker 4: Are you going to cancel the lunch break?
[15:41] Speaker 3: Lunch break? Okay? So all right, So I get asked
[15:47] Speaker 3: that question a lot as well extension of trading hours,
[15:49] Speaker 3: So first of all, I would generalize it to say
[15:53] Speaker 3: that investors want better access. Accessibility is what investors want,
[15:58] Speaker 3: and with technicology right, yes, certainly you know you want
[16:03] Speaker 3: to take your mobile phone out and be able to
[16:05] Speaker 3: trade whenever you want to. So as a general theme,
[16:08] Speaker 3: we certainly will be working on a lot of initiatives
[16:11] Speaker 3: to improve accessibility. That is something we'll do for sure.
[16:15] Speaker 3: Now with trading hours, each market is slightly different. We
[16:18] Speaker 3: have our uniqueness what we think we will do, and
[16:22] Speaker 3: you have shared with the market before. We will start
[16:25] Speaker 3: with the derivative market, which in fact we now trade
[16:28] Speaker 3: until three am in the morning already, but that we
[16:32] Speaker 3: see good potential to extend it so that we can
[16:36] Speaker 3: overlap with the opening of the US hour. And therefore
[16:39] Speaker 3: I think in the first phase you should expect to
[16:41] Speaker 3: hear from us the extension of trading hours on the
[16:44] Speaker 3: deriftive side.
[16:45] Speaker 1: That was Bonnie Chan, CEO of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing,
[16:49] Speaker 1: speaking with Bloomberg's Menmen Low, bringing you their conversation here
[16:53] Speaker 1: on the daybreakas podcast. Thanks for listening to today's episode
[16:59] Speaker 1: of the Bloomberg Daybreak Asia Edition podcast. Each weekday, we
[17:03] Speaker 1: look at the story shaping markets, finance, and geopolitics in
[17:07] Speaker 1: the Asia Pacific. You can find us on Apple, Spotify,
[17:10] Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Podcast YouTube channel, or anywhere else you listen.
[17:14] Speaker 1: Join us again tomorrow for insight on the market moves
[17:17] Speaker 1: from Hong Kong to Singapore and Australia. I'm Doug Prisoner
[17:22] Speaker 1: and this is Bloomberg

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