CEE Bonds

Russian bank debt has fallen out of favour after events snowballed into fears that Central Bank of Russia is lining up to pull the plugs on Credit Bank of Moscow (CBM) and Otkritie.

Nomura has added a new head of global markets sales for Russia and CIS as it continues to expand its emerging markets business following the appointment of David Ishoo-Mirzayoo as head of CEEMEA sales in March.

The state of Russia's banking system is making investors nervous and causing bond prices to drop. But that does not necessarily mean funding troubles for some firms in the sector.

Flows into emerging market bond funds remain strong, and with a heavy pipeline building for September, investors will have plenty of opportunities to put their money to work. But with no new issues this week, investors were combing through Q2 results looking for opportunities to switch up portfolios.

Turkish oil refiner Tupras has received approval from the Turkish Capital Markets Board to issue up to $1bn of external debt as the non-financial corporate pipeline builds in Turkey.

Supply of Russian Eurobonds is expected to remain healthy through to year end, with debt bankers this week mainly dismissing concerns that enhanced US sanctions and changes to local repo eligibility criteria could curb demand after the summer break.

Akbank has sold its first mortgage-backed covered bond. The deal, which will fund green projects, was privately placed with the European Investment Bank.

The Czech Republic has proposed several legal amendments that will bring its existing covered bond regime into line with the European Banking Authority’s best practice guidelines and which, along with similar moves in Slovakia, will help catalyse new covered bond supply from the region.

Changes to the list of collateral eligible for repo with the Russian central bank could cause a spike in spreads on local currency bank bonds and push more lenders towards the international markets, analysts said this week.

Turkey’s Coca-Cola İçecek (CCI) is set to offer investors a rare chance to buy Turkish corporate debt, and has announced its intention to raise up to $1bn from the bond markets within the next year.

The renminbi’s usage as a global payment currency goes up, BlackRock says full bond index inclusion will drive capital inflows into Chinese fixed income, and foreign ownership of Chinese bonds and equities rise.

Promsvyazbank (PSB) priced an inaugural additional tier one (AT1) dollar deal at 8.75% on Wednesday morning after attracting more than $1.1bn of orders.