Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

Moldova’s Trans-Oil opened books on the first ever Eurobond from the country on Wednesday, but the small size is likely to mean it flies under the radar of most investors.

Georgia Capital (formerly BGEO Investments), the Georgian holding company representing the investment business of BGEO Group, is embarking on a roadshow for a five year dollar bond.

A Turkish military strike in Syria on Tuesday hit investor appetite for Akbank’s subordinated tier two offering, with the raid causing several accounts not to come into the book at all, according to a lead manager.

The Republic of Belarus has released initial price thoughts for a $600m 12 year bond after the country’s last deal, printed in June 2017, climbed 11 points since pricing.

Gazprom is looking to enter the Swiss franc market for the fifth time, mandating four banks to arrange meetings for a benchmark bond. After Moody’s upgraded the Russian company to investment grade, the arrangers are particularly confident of Swiss interest.

The Republic of Slovenia is once again in the market with a liability management exercise that will enable it to tidy its debt structure by buying back up to $650m of its outstanding dollar bonds, as it continues its bid to consolidate its outstanding dollar debt into one bond maturing 2024.

Albaraka Turk scored a solid first last week when it issued Turkey’s first Basel III compliant additional tier one bond, but while this marks progress, it will take one of the country’s larger banks to establish a true benchmark.

Turkey’s Akbank has the sole attention of EM investors on Tuesday as it looks to price its second Basel III compliant tier two transaction.

Oleg Deripaska is to step down from his role as president of EN+, the Russian aluminium and hydropower company, which floated for $1.5bn in London and Moscow in November, and as president of its affiliate Rusal, as part of a pre-planned organisational change in which he will shift focus to other business interests.

A hardening of the US attitude to Iran, tensions with Turkey and the Qatari crisis may be closing some doors for trade in the Middle East but experts are convinced it is opening others, with China's One Belt, One Road initiative pushing countries such as China, India and Russia towards the region.

Slovakia’s largest distribution operator Západoslovenská energetika (ZSE) has named two banks to arrange a new euro deal of a medium maturity.

Albaraka Turk, the Turkish subsidiary of Bahrain’s Albaraka Banking Group, has issued the first ever additional tier one capital bond from Turkey, doing so in private placement format.