Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

EPP, a Polish real estate investment company, has come to market for a five year euro benchmark in what will be the first non-corporate bond from CEE since early May, but early indications suggest a lukewarm reception.

Turkey’s Garanti bank has sold its first ever social bond, a $75m private placement. The International Finance Corporation purchased the bond as part of its Banking on Women Programme.

Increased hostility towards Russia from the UK political establishment is severing the financial links between the two countries. The arguments between Russia and the West are freezing the former’s equity capital markets, which depend on UK and US investors, and is, according to some sources, driving Russians to repatriate capital. In the long-run, it could even be detrimental to the UK’s capital markets industry, write Sam Kerr and Francesca Young.

Two issuers from the CEEMEA region — Bulgarian Energy Holding and Ecobank Transnational Inc — have mandated banks for new bonds and are embarking on roadshows, breaking the wait-and-see mode that the market had slipped into over the last week.

Turkey’s Garanti bank has sold its first ever social bond, issuing a $75m private placement. The bond was purchased by the International Finance Corporation as part of its Banking on Women Programme.

Ukrainian Eurobonds weakened early this week as sentiment waned, despite some progress in an anti-corruption law that is a key condition for the disbursement of the next round of funding from the International Monetary Fund, and as the market contemplated the dismissal of respected finance minister Oleksandr Danylyuk.

Unrealistic pricing expectations are keeping two EM corporate issuers by the wayside after volatile markets forced Atrium to cancel a tender offer combined with a new issue last week.

In a rare instance for CEE countries, Romania has printed 30 year dollar bonds.

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) is planning new rules from the start of July that will ramp up the risk weighting on foreign currency loans, which is expected to lead to a tumble in non-ruble lending in the country at a time when international banks are steering clear. Mike Turner reports.

Slovakia, Croatia and Romania dived into the primary bond market this week — all keen to take advantage of what has been by recent standards a rare period of market stability to print.

Romania has released initial price guidance for a dollar bond offering around a 30bp-40bp pick-up over its outstanding curve, according to a banker away from the deal.

The Republic of Croatia pulled pricing for its €750m 2.7% 2028 bond 30bp tighter than initial price guidance on Wednesday, bringing the reoffer spread nearly flat to the outstanding curve.