Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

Sistema, the Russian conglomerate controlled by Vladimir Yevtushenkov, has been forced to cancel the $70m sale of Detsky Mir shares it conducted on Monday night, after some of its assets, including its stake in the toy store, were frozen by an arbitration court in the Republic of Bashkortostan.

Shares in Detsky Mir, the Russian toy retailer, fell 8.2% on Tuesday after Sistema, the Russian conglomerate controlled by Vladimir Yevtushenkov, and the Russia-China Investment Fund sold some of their shares in the company through an accelerated bookbuild on Monday night.

Turkey’s Fibabanka has signed a $167m loan, bringing its refinancings for the year to an end.

Russian diamond producer Alrosa has signed unsecured bilateral loans for $600m to refinance a previous loan at tighter pricing. It follows the trend of loosening loan structures as bankers get more comfortable with Russian risk.

SMBC Nikko has hired a new head of emerging markets credit trading as it looks to build out its fixed income offering.

Russia’s Otkritie Bank last week announced plans to write down its outstanding tier two bonds, including an old-style $500m 10% April 2019 tier two, the contractual terms of which did not include a write-down feature. The move was an invitation to sue the private lender, said one EM portfolio manager, and GlobalCapital can reveal that Baker & McKenzie is building a case to bring against the bank.

The Republic of Bulgaria has investment grade ratings from all three big rating agencies, after Standard & Poor's last Friday revised the country's credit rating to BBB- from BB+.

EN+ Group, the Russian power and metals company controlled by Oleg Deripaska, rose more than 2% in Moscow trading on Monday morning after posting its first results since its $1.5bn IPO in early November.

Finansbank’s $780m loan is being provided by 33 banks, led by Mizuho.

The Philippines postpones its Panda bond deal as it awaits approval from China’s central bank, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) opens its first office in Singapore, and the renminbi falls to seventh place in the league table of the world’s most used payments currency in October.

Banks have been dipping their toes back into the unsecured loan pool this year as their appetite for Russian credits has grown, three years after the annexation of Crimea. Alongside loan structures loosening, pricing has also dropped to near pre-sanction levels as the demand for deals outstrips supply.

Bulgarian insurer Eurohold sold a €70m five year bond on Thursday, rolling many investors from an old bond into this new one.