Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

The Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus raised $500m with its first ever Eurobond on Wednesday, slicing 25bp off its yield from initial price thoughts.

Volodymyr Zelensky's victory in Ukraine's presidential elections last weekend is unlikely to be a catalyst for a burst of corporate or sovereign loan issuance, according to international lenders. Although financing requirements are to remain high, borrowers are expected to focus on bonds and supranationals.

Valdis Dombrovskis, vice president of the European Commission, joined a chorus of voices at a European Covered Bond Council plenary meeting in Riga this week in praising efforts to create a harmonised covered bond framework for the Baltic states. But market participants said the project still had some way to go, with those involved working hard to flesh out the final details.

The Energy-Efficient Mortgage (EEM) initiative took another important step towards its objective of delivering a standardised European framework on Wednesday, with an event in Latvia bringing together various sponsors to discuss plans for the market’s development.

The Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus has released initial price guidance for its Eurobond debut at 7% area for a five year Reg S/144A dollar bond. A banker away from the deal called the level fair.

A softening in Ukrainian bond spreads may prompt the country's debt management officials to drag their feet over issuing its next public bond. It would be better for them to get moving.

Rustranscom, the Russian freight and logistics operator, has decided against a listing that it had begun marketing in London and has opted instead for a private equity transaction.

DCM bankers are expecting a sovereign bond from Ukraine imminently, after Vladimir Zelensky, a 41 year old Russian-speaking comedian, won the country's presidential election on Sunday.

The covered bond industry and the Capital Markets Union (CMU) hit a new milestone on Thursday after the European Parliament’s plenary in Strasbourg adopted the text of the Covered Bond Directive just after midday.

Kingspan, an Irish insulation company, has made a €700m offer for two units of Belgium’s Recticel, but will sell one of them if the deal goes ahead.

Moody's has given Estonia’s newly established covered bond framework a mixed report, an assessment that will be a helpful guide for the other countries in the Baltic region, which plan to use special purpose vehicles to get around some of the problems their neighbour faces.

The calls have started to emerge for Turkey to turn to the IMF. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has always been dead set against the idea — and perhaps that’s for the best.