CEE Bonds

Metinvest has swerved a default of its Eurobond due January 31 after bondholders voted to approve a waiver which will enable the issuer to restructure its debt without triggering a cross-default clause.

Bondholders of a $211m private placement issued by the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) met last week to discuss the bank’s request for a waiver after it unknowingly breached the bond's covenants.

Markets opened with a more positive tone on Monday after comments from Saudi Arabia buoyed oil prices and the European Central Bank boosted confidence last week. But with many US bankers snowed in at home, EM issuers are holding back.

Igor Knyazev will be taking over the role of group treasury chief at Alfa Bank in Russia when Michael Lawrence retires in June.

Emerging market bankers are saying that greater scrutiny may now need to be paid to the ratings calendar when printing bonds after Standard & Poor’s downgrade of Poland on Friday prompted one of the worst sell-offs of an EM new issue in recent memory.

Poland’s sovereign bond spreads are in turmoil, after a shock downgrade by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) late last week. The move follows a sharp drop in its political risk score in the latest Euromoney Country Risk (ECR) survey.

Several CEE entities revealed funding plans at Euromoney’s Central and Eastern European Forum in Vienna this week. Here is a roundup of some of those plans.

Hungary may add more banks to the mandate for its potential dim sum bonds, said Andras Rez, deputy chief executive officer at the government debt management agency (AKK) in Hungary.

The treasury chief of one of Russia’s largest private banks is set to retire this summer.

Ukrainian Railways (Ukrzaliznytsia) is a step closer to restructuring its $500m of bonds due 2018 and will seek agreement from investors at a meeting on February 17.

Central and eastern European borrowers gathered in Vienna this week for Euromoney’s Central & Eastern Europe Conference and are not short of plans for the capital markets this year.

Russian mining company Norilsk Nickel is “completely pre-funded” for the next two years, its head of corporate finance told GlobalCapital.