Some of those deals could be sukuk. Both Pakistan and Luxembourg have picked banks for their deals while Gulf Finance House has registered a $200m issue with Nasdaq Dubai.
The bankers are however expecting Russia's borrowers to still be largely absent from that list. With the exceptions of Lukoil and Gazprom, banks with bonds maturing before the end of this year will either need to or choose to look somewhere other than international bond markets for financing.
Not so in loans, where steelmaker Evraz has proved that the loan market is still open to Russian borrowers by signing a $425m pre-export facility with banks. Meanwhile, another encouraging sign is that oil refinery Slavneft Yanos’s $500m loan continues to move ahead, with a US bank still said to be on the deal despite the country’s inclusion of loans in its recent sanctions language — albeit to specified Russian institutions.
EM loans in general remain in a lull, however, although Akbank is set to start a second wave of Turkish bank refinancings on Thursday, coordinated by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, with Isbank and Yapi Kredi also in the market to follow Akbank’s lead.
Francesca Young +44 (0) 207 779 7313
Steve Gilmore +44 (0) 207 779 7298
Dan Alderson +44 (0) 207 779 8297
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