CEE Bonds

Bank of China has signalled its commitment to Beijing’s “One Belt One Road” policy with plans for a new five-tranche, four-currency bond that will be issued by its branches along the trade rout. The senior notes in dollars, euro, Singapore dollar and offshore renminbi are expected to raise up to $4bn and are a global first.

Atrium Real Estate announced tender results this week, and now holds the vast majority of its 2017 euro notes.

Poland’s economy has impressed over the past seven years, especially when held up against its slow-moving EU neighbours. But with a shock result in the May presidential election that saw PiS candidate Andrzej Duda win, and a general election due in October, the domestic and international financial communities are reluctantly having to get used to political uncertainty in Poland. Philip Moore reports.

Artur Radziwill, Undersecretary of State, Ministry of Finance, tells GlobalCapital how the economic picture is becoming more balanced as exports have returned as an engine of growth alongside domestic consumption and investment but questions whether, in the absence of any upgrades, Poland should be paying for three solicited ratings.

With the privatisation programme more or less over, the question for Warsaw is: what next? For many, two key areas of focus are the development of the mutual fund industry, as Polish savings migrate away from bank deposits, and the fixed income market as capital requirements makes access to the bank loan market more restrictive. Philip Moore reports.

The Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW) has been spearheading Poland’s programme for building a regional financial centre. In this interview, the exchange’s president and CEO, Pawel Tamborski, shares his views on the prospects for the bourse at a local and international level.

Andrzej Raczko was Poland’s finance minister during the final stage of the country’s accession to the European Union in 2003-04. Today, he is a member of the management board at the National Bank of Poland. In this interview, he shares his views on the outlook for Poland’s economy and financial services industry with GlobalCapital’s Philip Moore.

As an indirect beneficiary of the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing programme, Poland started 2015 with an extraordinary rally, culminating in the printing of a Swiss franc bond with a negative yield — the first ever for an emerging market borrower. More recently though, yields have backed up as the ECB rally has run out of steam.

With the ruling party losing out in the recent parliamentary elections some observers predict that the sovereign is in danger of losing its haven status among international investors. But Poland’s domestic bond markets tell a different story with zloty debt holding firm despite the country’s political road bumps. Virginia Furness reports.

Reinsurance company Swiss Re has received the first RMB qualified foreign institutional investor licence in Switzerland. Meanwhile, Singapore-based UOB Asset Management has told GlobalRMB that it will launch three new RQFII products before the end of 2015.

The Republic of Kazakhstan has hired Citi and JP Morgan, which both led its last bond, to arrange a dollar Reg S/144A bond. Investor meetings for the note start on Wednesday.

Russia’s Industrial Metallurgical Holding (KOKS Group) has extended a consent solicitation offer linked to potential new public bond deal.