CEE Bonds

Syngenta, the Swiss agrichemicals company, on Tuesday sold its first Swiss franc bond since being acquired by China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina) in 2017. But other mandated deals hang in the balance as the Covid-19 coronavirus spreads across Europe.

The Republic of Belarus will roadshow a dollar and euro dual trancher next week, but made it clear in the mandate announcement that there may be a wait before the bond is printed.

Yandex, the Russian internet company, reopened the equity-linked bond primary market in EMEA after more than a month without any new issues, with a $1.25bn five year convertible bond. The deal was priced at the midpoint of the terms, suggesting healthy demand.

Russian Railways is embarking on a roadshow to market the first ever green Swiss franc bond from Russia, even as fears of the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus continue to infect EM bond trading.

The US Treasury slapped sanctions on a Rosneft subsidiary on Tuesday for brokering sales of Venezuelan crude oil that supported president Nicolás Maduro’s government. Some expect this to be the first of similar actions, in the run up to the US presidential election.

Gazprom returned to the Eurobond market for the first time in a year on Tuesday, pulling in $4bn of orders at one stage in the pricing process, despite the US sanctioning a Rosneft subsidiary.

Gazprom has released initial price guidance for a 10 year dollar benchmark at 3.625% area. A US investor said the deal was a “buy”.

Nabil Lahham has joined HSBC to head up advisory and corporate finance coverage for the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey. He was most recently at Perella Weinberg Partners.

The Republic of Turkey made its much anticipated start to the year with a bang on Thursday, taking advantage of feverish risk appetite among emerging markets investors to sell its largest ever bond, a $4bn dual tranche deal.

Stephen Moss and Nuno Matos have been given new roles of responsibility for Europe at HSBC, ahead of expected restructuring of the group in that region, particularly in global banking and markets (GBM).

The Development Bank of Kazakhstan (DBK) released initial price guidance for a tenge-denominated five year bond on Wednesday morning in London.

The Republic of Poland has printed €1.5bn 0% 2025s on Monday, selling the deal at 100.512 to give the first ever negative yield in euros — minus 0.102% — from any global EM issuer.