CEE Bonds

The Republic of Turkey re-opened the CEEMEA bond market in 2015 on Wednesday with a $1.5bn tap of its 2043s. Turbulence across EM and falling oil prices played to Turkey’s favour with the bond offering a haven to nervous investors. But as a result of the recent volatility, the country paid a decent new issue premium, bringing in a $5bn book.

Analysts are concerned that New World Resources, the Czech coking coal producer, could need a new debt restructuring, after it struck deals to sell coal that could leave it still leaking cash.

The deadline to submit bond market strategy recommendations for Romania is Thursday.

The Republic of Turkey, one of the emerging market countries expected to benefit from falling oil prices, is reopening its 2043 bonds today.

The Turkish Treasury has promoted Cagatay Imirgi to deputy director-general. Zeynep Boga will replace Imirgi as head of the international capital markets department.

Promsvyazbank has made another opportunistic move to manage its debt liabilities, on Monday announcing a buyback of 10% of its 2015s and 2016s. The move shows the bank has liquidity to deploy and follows an earlier buyback in December.

Russian Standard Bank has withdrawn its proposed tier two bond update after failing to secure the consent of holders of nearly half of the bond before the December 16 deadline. The offer looked to be struggling as early as mid-December when the bank increased the late consent fee from 1% to 5% to switch to the new notes.

Suddenly, Russia is suffering. In the last few days, with the oil price collapsing and a collapse in the rouble exchange rate, many in the West have started to suggest that it is time to rethink sanctions.

The rouble crisis hurt Russian corporates hard this week, but several companies took an even bigger hit because of their exposure to sinking commodity prices. While immediate repayment risks remain fairly benign for most, a deterioration of oil prices or the rouble could lead to covenant breaches.

The Russian economic crisis this week boosted participation in a tender offer for Evraz's 2015 bond. Investors accounting for $278m of Evraz's $576.7m 2015 notes agreed to a company buyback of the note at just over par.

Agroton Public, the Ukraine based agricultural company, has further delayed interest payments on its $50m notes due 2019 after bondholders voted in favour of the extraordinary resolution on Monday. The company’s operations have been severely impacted by the fighting in eastern Ukraine and analysts say its financial outlook is dire.

The beating that Russia’s markets took this week wasn’t on the same scale as the 1998 crisis but it was nevertheless shocking even for veterans of the earlier collapse, who were left slack-jawed at the free-fall of the rouble on Tuesday, writes Francesca Young. Even after the authorities got their act together and produced a package of stabilising measures and interventions on Wednesday, investors are now acutely aware of the heightened risk of defaults next year as weakness cascades through the economy.