CEE Bonds

Czech corporate Severomoravské vodovody a kanalizace Ostrava (SmVak) has picked banks for a rare Reg S local currency deal.

It's been a good week for Europe's renminbi ambitions with the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (Safe) extending a Rmb50bn RMB qualified foreign institutional investor (RQFII) quota to Hungary, while China Construction Bank (CCB) listed its RQFII ETF on Paris’ Euronext.

Although those in the CEEMEA bond market seem to have given up for the summer already, two SSAs — International Finance Facility for Immunisation and the International Finance Corporation — as well as Arab Petroleum Investments Corp have mandated banks for a sukuk.

Europe's investment grade corporate bond market is in shutdown, but the mood is calm among bankers, and most issuers are comfortable biding their time on the sidelines.

Turkey’s use of the international syndicated loan market has not regained its pre-crisis heights, when companies and banks borrowed over $50bn in 2006 and 2007.

Bank Saint Petersburg is offering to repurchase a total of up to $50m of its $100m 10.5% 2017s and $101m 11% 2018s.

The International Finance Corp (IFC) has launched a Turkish lira discount note programme, becoming the first international issuer to print discount notes in the currency.

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.