Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

Mid Europa Partner’s syndicated loan, which will finance its purchase of Romanian supermarket chain Profi Rom Food, is set to be finalised by the end of the week according to a banker on the deal.

Yapi Kredi reopened the Turkish financial bond market on Tuesday, garnering a $1.2bn book that was sticky enough to allow the issuer to tighten pricing 37.5bp — good news for the $3.7bn worth of Turkish financial senior bonds that will need refinancing this year.

This week has seen the reopening of sovereign bonds from the Gulf region and Turkish bank debt, with Bahrain and Yapi Kredi both printing successful trades on Tuesday.

Bond buyers showed strong appetite for Russian Railways’ new dollar benchmark on Wednesday morning despite pricing levels seen as tight by sector analysts.

The Republic of Slovenia will issue new euro debt to finance a buyback of its existing dollar bonds in its second trade of 2017.

CVC has agreed to buy Polish retailer Żabka Polska from Mid Europa Partners, in what the latter says is the largest private equity exit in Poland to date.

Yapi ve Kredi Bankasi is the first of the Turkish banks to follow a successful sovereign tap last week, and with Turkish bank debt well bid in secondaries, it will be expecting a better result than its last senior trade.

Last year was a record in terms of number of downgrades of emerging market sovereigns, with another four added this year — Turkey, Mozambique, El Salvador and Costa Rica. But Société Générale on Friday became the latest firm to criticise the ratings agencies for their pessimism.

Polish energy provider Energa SA is meeting investors this week for its first Polish non-financial corporate bond since June last year, which will also be the first corporate deal from anywhere in Central and Eastern Europe this year.

PBoC opened the week with a near-300bp weakening of the dollar fix, while Rusal received the green light for its upcoming Panda bond deal, and the Shanghai-London Stock Connect is now one step closer to becoming reality.

Turkey made an opportunistic move on Thursday to reopen its recent 10 year bond for another $1bn. The $4.7bn book size showed there is no let-up in demand for Turkish sovereign debt.

Steel company Severstal played true to Russian borrower form on Thursday, printing its new 4.5 year bond well inside its existing curve, according to bankers.