Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

A subsidiary of Petropavlovsk has refinanced a $204m loan, with the Russia-focused gold mining company using the exercise to reduce its balance sheet exposure to the debt.

The Republic of Albania will go on the road to promote a euro benchmark transaction for the first time in three years.

Hungary’s Futureal has signed a €150m 10 year loan, with the real estate developer claiming it’s the largest deal of its kind in the country since the global finance crisis began.

The Banking Association of Turkey has set out a restructuring framework for the country’s banks to cut corporate borrowers some slack over loan repayments and credit availability, as the government and financial sector takes steps to limit the fallout from Turkey’s political and economic crisis.

The Banking Association of Turkey has set out a restructuring framework for the country’s banks to cut corporate borrowers some slack over loan repayments and credit availability, as the government and financial sector continues to take steps to limit the fallout from Turkey’s political and economic crisis.

The Middle East is continuing its domination of the CEEMEA primary market and even the Latin America new issue market is starting to see some action as a run of successful bonds in the last fortnight is helping to bolster investor confidence.

The Russian central bank announced a 25bp rate hike on Friday in a move calculated to offset the effect of expected US sanctions.

Belarus’s state-owned BeIinvestbank is in talks to raise a €50m syndicated loan, in a rare international deal for the country.

It is the 10th anniversary of Lehman’s collapse and we are being inundated with retrospectives and predictions of what will cause the next crisis. Many are pointing towards emerging markets as a likely catalyst, a logical conjecture given the tightening in monetary policy that is underway in the US.

The Central Bank of Turkey delivered a larger-than-expected interest rate hike this week that was given a cautious welcome by emerging markets bond syndicate bankers hoping to see some stability in the lira. Loans bankers working on a crucial $930m loan refinancing for Akbank — seen as a litmus test of foreign lenders' appetite to roll over loans to the financial sector — were nonplussed by the move, but still expressed confidence in rolling the bulk of the funds.

The Turkish central bank, in a remarkable display of independence, has raised its weekly repo rate by 625bp, combatting its runaway inflation but making recession a more likely prospect, according to one investor.

Ukraine’s ViOil has returned to the market for an $80m loan, with the cooking oil company managing to stretch the tenor of its bank debt from one to three years.