CEE Bonds

Tinkoff Bank, a Russian online bank, may return to the Eurobond market as early as this year as the prices on offer for their international bonds look attractive, even after the latest set of US sanctions on Russia, according to Larisa Chernysheva, head of investor relations at Tinkoff.

Ukrainian energy company DTEK is struggling to halt a slide in its bond trading since the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) issued notices of suspicion to six individuals — two of whom are DTEK employees — involved in a coal pricing controversy. The bonds have lost around five points in the space of a week.

The rout of the incumbent president Mauricio Macri in the first round of the Argentina elections has investors worried. Argentina’s debt, and that of other 'vulnerable' credits, suffered a huge sell-off early on Monday. But bankers believe that it was not so bad that the primary market will not reopen in September.

Poland's Bank Pekao is planning to tap the Eurobond market for the first time in 2020, in order to set down a senior benchmark for the subsequent issuance of capital ratio raising bonds, according to Pawel Rzezniczak, head of investor relations and corporate development at the bank.

Bankers and investors have expressed their irritation at the US's new set of sanctions on Russia. The latest punitive actions stop US financial institutions from extending debt financing in the primary market to the sovereign.

Emerging market loan bankers have been trying to understand the impact on syndicated lending of the US’s latest sanctions on Russia. The proscriptions have instilled more uncertainty into a collapsing market.

Russia was slapped with sanctions this week that stop US financial institutions from participating in primary issuance from the sovereign. So far, so terrifying as – eek!— Russia’s main artery of finance has been cut. Only it hasn’t been, not really. Don’t be too surprised if the Russia sovereign comes out soon with an international bond to prove it.

EM investors are calling the US Treasury’s latest round of sanctions — this time on Russian sovereign debt — confusing and knowingly ineffective.

Swiss firm responsAbility Investments has closed a $175m microfinance CLO via JP Morgan, revitalising an industry which last saw issuance before the financial crisis.

The US has imposed sanctions on Russian sovereign debt in response to the use of a banned nerve agent in the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy. However, the sanctions are not severe enough to have damaged demand for Russian bonds in the secondary market.

The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank printed its first bond denominated in Azerbaijani manat last week, raising Am10m ($5.9m) with an auction of a two year bond.

The US Federal Reserve delivered a 25bp rate cut as expected on Wednesday, but the signalling failed to satisfy investors desperate for more accommodative policy, causing a mild sell-off in emerging markets.