Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

Polish bank mBank is embarking on a roadshow to market the first euro denominated international public bond from the CEEMEA region in over a month, and the first since Turkey’s currency crisis triggered a wave of selling across emerging market debt.

Panic has gripped Turkey's markets, sending investors scuttling. Luckily, the loan market has proved once again that it is capable of providing much needed cool heads amid the sea of red on screens this summer.

Sberbank is merging its corporate banking and Sberbank CIB divisions and plans to complete the integration by the end of 2018, with deputy chairman Anatoly Popov heading the combined entity.

Russia’s Mechel has signed a $1bn-equivalent loan facility, as the metals and mining group pushes ahead with plans to restructure its debt portfolio by the end of 2018.

It’s been a turbulent summer in emerging markets, but borrowers in the Middle East in particular are already eyeing their return to the market.

Lenders working on Turkish bank syndicated loans say deals are still going ahead, and any suggestion that the country’s woes have postponed the active deals are just rumours.

New US sanctions announcements on Russia, chatter around new IMF financing for Angola and a desperate economic recovery plan in Venezuela are keeping those emerging market portfolio managers still at their desks busy. But low volumes are playing havoc with EM secondary levels as traders embrace the quietest trading week of the summer.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has frequently used FX and equity market investors as straw men on which to blame Turkey’s economic woes, rather than his own government’s economic mismanagement, a claim given veracity now by the petulant tweeting of US president Donald Trump.

MegaFon has secured Rb15bn ($222m) in loans from Gazprombank, as Russia’s second largest phone company builds a financial war chest to become the country’s latest company to delist from the London Stock Exchange.

Amid the chaos in Turkey, bankers are pitching bond buy-back opportunities to the country's beleaguered banks. Many argue that those in a position to take them up should be looked upon favourably by investors. The problem is, those investors might not even notice.

Two rating agencies lowered Turkey’s credit rating on Friday evening, but the beleaguered nation’s asset prices have largely shrugged off the news, despite predictions of a recession.

The sovereign credit crisis spurred lawmakers to undertake a number of major initiatives designed to sever the ‘doom loop’ — the link between sovereign and bank credit risk. Recent events in Italy and Turkey show the limits of these policies, but not their impotence.