Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

Swiss investors’ thirst for yield was quenched in some style at the end of last week, when Russian Railways printed the largest Swiss franc transaction of the year from an emerging market borrower.

Ukrainian steel and mining company Metinvest sold a dual tranche dollar and euro bond on Tuesday, but an inability to tighten from initial price guidance and poor trading in the secondary market on Wednesday had some investors worried that the perfect window for EM issuance is closing.

A pair of CEE corporates, Veon Holdings and NordGold, released initial price guidance for bonds on Tuesday, both offering paper after a break from international issuance.

Globalworth Real Estate Investments, the London-listed real estate investment trust focused on commercial properties in Romania and Poland, is preparing to raise up to €276.45m of fresh equity to finance its bulging pipeline of acquisitions.

Initial price guidance has been set for two corporate bonds from issuers in the CEE region — EP infrastructure and Metinvest. Both deals expected to be printed later on Tuesday.

Sovcombank printed a tier two bond on Monday at the wide end of guidance and the lowest end of the expected size range, which an investor said was a sign that the deal was “struggling” over the line. But a lead manager on the note pointed to healthy trading on Tuesday and its debut status and said that the issuer had simply taken sensible decisions after an in-depth price discovery process.

Trans-Oil, the Moldovan agro-industrial firm, has signed a $150m loan facility with nine lenders, including three development banks.

Kernel, a Ukrainian agriculture company, has returned to the international bond market for the first time in two years, defying the political turmoil developing in Ukraine.

Sovcombank was in the market on Monday morning with a subordinated bond, just 10 days after the issuer’s credit rating was upgraded by two major ratings agencies.

Rating: Ba2/—/BB+

Russia’s State Transport Leasing Co, also known as GTLK, printed a $550m Reg S bond on Wednesday from a book of more than $1.3bn, with a surprisingly high proportion of US offshore demand.

Montenegro came to market on Thursday for its first ever 10 year bond. Demand for the euro deal proved strong enough for the issuer to raise €500m and allowed the leads to set the yield roughly flat to fair value.