Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

Fallout from a diplomatic incident drove yields on Turkish sovereign paper to almost 20% this week. While yields have come off their highs, the picture remains bleak for the beleaguered nation.

Sri Lanka and Turkey are preparing to sell their first Panda bonds, enticed by falling funding costs in China's bond markets. But given they both have lower credit ratings than previous sovereign Panda issuers, they may face an uphill battle as regulators scrutinise their finances.

We Soda, a soda ash producer fully owned by Turkish industrial conglomerate Ciner Group, has signed three seven year term loans totalling $1.66bn-equivalent in the biggest Turkish corporate loan in half a decade.

Turkish banks are gearing up for a round of loan refinancing at a time when the country is a risky economic hunting ground. But bank lenders are confident the loan market will support Turkish banks, albeit at wider margins.

Hopes rose this week of a revival for Russia’s equity capital markets when the US Treasury extended a key sanctions licence until October, allowing aluminium conglomerate EN+ to continue with a plan that would remove sanctions on the company.

The US has imposed sanctions on two senior officials in the Turkish government, prompting debt and equity markets to sell off and driving Turkish lira to over five to the dollar for the first time in history.

FMO has printed an onshore Georgian lari bond for the first time, with proceeds helping a drive to de-dollarise Georgia’s economy.

Turkey’s Akbank is seeking to refinance a pair of $337m and €515m one year loans signed last August.

Czech firm EP Infrastructure has signed a €1.5bn syndicated loan that was subject to heavy scale-backs, after lenders offered the energy infrastructure company double the amount it was looking for.

HSBC has appointed Gareth Thomas as head of global banking for the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey. He starts in the new job in September.

Bulgarian Energy Holding, the 100% government-owned Bulgarian electricity and gas holding company, has printed a €150m tap of the €400m 3.5% 2025s it sold in June.

Bulgarian Energy Holding, the 100% government-owned Bulgarian electricity and gas holding company, is returning to the bond markets for a tap of the €400m 3.5% 2015s it sold in June.The BEH tap will be only the third public Eurobond printed in the CEEMEA market this month — the other two were a Lietuvos Energija green bond in euros and an Angola tap in dollars.