CEE Bonds

Russian Railways is gearing up to offer the first Russian Eurobond for the year, with Barclays, Citi, JP Morgan and VTB Capital leading the deal.

Serbia may turn to sukuk as it eyes $600m in Eurobonds this year to help fill its €5.6bn funding target for 2014.

PKO BP became the latest emerging market issuer to target euro investors with the announcement on Wednesday morning that it had picked banks for a five year deal.

Romania made a stunning return to the dollar market on Tuesday, attracting nearly $12bn of demand for a dual-tranche deal that included the sovereign’s first ever 30 year issue.

Sovereign supply has dominated the CEEMEA market this week, with Latvia and Romania delivering landmark deals in euros and dollars respectively.

Poland’s deputy director of its public debt department, Bogdan Klimaszewski, has said the country could finish 50% of its financing for 2014 by the end of the month.

Serbia is planning to issue $600m in Eurobonds this year to help fill its €5.6bn funding target for 2014. Branko Drčelić, director of the public debt administration department at the Ministry of Finance said that the issue would likely be in dollars or euros, but the country is also considering sukuk, yen and rouble-denominated bonds for the future.

Romania became the first CEEMEA name to attempt a bond sale in dollars since the start of the year when it opened books on Tuesday on a dual tranche benchmark issue.

Slovakia drew a hefty book for its new January 2029s on Thursday, picking up roughly €4bn of orders in just 2.5 hours and tightening pricing by 10bp from initial price thoughts.

Albaraka Turk plans to issue $300m to $400m of sukuk this year – up to twice the amount it previously indicated.

Ukraine plans to sell $15bn in sovereign debt to Russia, and the first sale could come before the end of this week. The news sent Ukrainian sovereign spreads plummeting and should reduce the chance of a default in 2014, said analysts. But it did little to alter to the sovereign’s long term prospects, or those of other Ukrainian credits, said debt bankers.

Predicting volume for sukuk can be more difficult than for emerging market bonds, given the sukuk market is still in a nascent stage and many issuers are coming to the asset class for the first time. It is widely expected, however, that dollar sukuk issuance will surpass this year’s figure in 2014.