CEE Bonds

Ferrexpo, a Ukrainian iron ore pellet exporter, is struggling to secure bond holder approval to exchange its $500m notes due 2016 and has extended the early bird deadline to 17 February 2015.

Russian Standard Bank’s attempts to update its 10.75% 2018 notes is turning into something of a saga with the bank raising the late consent fee for the second time. The bank postponed its first offer after failing to secure investor support in December but analysts had expected the second attempt to be a success.

Russian steel company Severstal has updated the terms of its offer to buy back of up to $600m in aggregate of its 2016s and 2017s.

Impairments that may have to be made by Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International to its Russian exposure could affect the entire Austrian banking industry, according to analysts at Berenberg.

International Bank of Azerbaijan is meeting investors in conjunction with its establishment of a European Commercial Paper (ECP) programme.

Comments from Belarus’ president Alexander Lukashenko that the country may hold debt restructuring talks this year sent Belarus’ 2015 Eurobond crashing 26 cash points, according to one banker. However the Ministry of Economy later clarified that Belarus fully intends to service its debt and that the president had accidently said restructuring when he meant to say refinancing, sending the bonds back up nearly 18 points.

EU foreign ministers met in Brussels on Thursday, January 29, to discuss imposing further sanctions on Russia, following an upsurge in fighting in east Ukraine during the previous weekend. But there is doubt whether the EU will be able to unanimously agree to extend sanctions, as Greece’s new government said that it did not consent to an EU statement calling for broader sanctions, which was released on Tuesday.

Slovakia’s Eustream, a crucial pipeline that carries Russian gas to Europe, has mandated Citi, ING, Société Générale and UniCredit to arrange a series of fixed income investor meetings in Europe starting on Monday.

Vakifbank priced the first ever Basel III compliant tier two bond on Monday, a $500m 10 year non-call five. But though bankers estimated that the bond paid around 115bp-116bp over its old style tier two bullet 2022s, they said it was difficult to strip out the cost of the addition of point of non-viability features.

Russian officials are due to present plans for a bad bank to the government on Friday, as part of a range of measures unveiled on Wednesday aimed at combating the sharp economic downturn. But the creation of a bad bank is the most uncertain of all the proposed measures, said Russian bank analysts, and has attracted opposition from high ranking ministers.

Comments from Belarus’ president Alexander Lukashenko that the country may hold debt restructuring talks this year, sent Belarus’ 2015 Eurobond crashing 26 cash points. However the Ministry of Economy later clarified that Belarus fully intends to service its debt and that the president had accidently said restructuring when he meant to say refinancing.

Raiffeisen Bank International will cut its risk-weighted assets by 20%, in a move aimed at reducing its exposure to Russia and bolstering its capital buffer.