CEE Bonds

The Republic of Belarus, which issued one of the best performing bonds of 2017, is looking to return with a 10 year dollar benchmark.

Nostrum Oil & Gas, the Kazakh independent oil and gas company listed in London, nipped into a busy bond market on Thursday to raise $400m to complete the refinancing of its bonds due 2019.

Credit Bank of Moscow and Domodedovo Airport (DME) brought the total Eurobond tally of Russian issuers this year to seven this week. Those latest two issuers jumped in shortly after Directive 1 sanction fears were quashed by the US Treasury.

RusHydro, the Russian hydroelectric power generator, issued the first local currency Eurobond of 2018 with a three year note on Thursday. Bond bankers said that internationally cleared local currency bonds would gain increasing traction this year.

Moldovan agro-industrial holding company Trans-Oil Group is looking to make its capital markets debut. The deal will be the first ever from a Moldovan corporate — and with no outstanding bonds from the sovereign, investors will have a lot of price work to do.

Moldovan agro-industrial holding company Trans-Oil Group is looking to make its capital markets debut. The deal will be the first ever from a Moldovan corporate, and the first chance investors have had to buy Moldovan risk since 1997.

Credit Bank of Moscow printed a $500m five year bond from a book in excess of $1.1bn on Wednesday, quelling fears of EM new issues shutting down in face of US Treasury yield rises. Domodedovo Airport looks next to print in dollars from the country while the State Transport Leasing Company has also mandated for a bond.

RusHydro, the Russian hydroelectric power generator, kicked off local currency Eurobonds for 2018 with a three year note on Thursday. DCM bankers said that internationally cleared local currency bonds will gain increasing traction this year.

Rival bankers are keenly watching Credit Bank of Moscow’s trade as a barometer for the market this week. A sell-off in US Treasuries seemed to imply a higher borrowing cost for the issuer, though with price revisions to come, it is too early to say by how much.

The Institute of International Finance (IIF) on Monday reported $4bn of outflows from emerging market bond funds since January 30, but even in the face of a global equity sell-off, the asset class has been largely resilient — for now.

Last week’s chatter in the bond markets about the US applying a new round of sanctions on Russia served to highlight how little investors feel threatened by this kind of talk. Now the US has to take action to affect Russia.

The US Treasury has said that Russia’s bond market is too important to global financial stability to sanction under Directive 1, which is the “most positive scenario for Russian financial instruments,” according to analysis by Danske Bank.