Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

China and Russia are forging ahead with closer financial market ties, with the Moscow Exchange (Moex) and Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) looking to facilitate two-way investments between the countries. This comes as the Russian ministry of finance is still finalising plans for the first RMB-denominated bond to be issued in Russia.

Shares in MedLife, Romania’s largest private healthcare provider, gained 3% on Wednesday after it completed the first Romanian IPO since June 2014.

Alfa-Bank defied low pre-Christmas liquidity levels to print a $300m increase of its AT1 that was sold to a greater proportion of international investors than the original October print, according to a lead banker.

The Z5.14bn (€1.16bn) of loans for the leveraged buy-out of Allegro, the Polish online marketplace, have been allocated, with the leads choosing zloty rather than senior or junior euro bonds for the second lien piece.

Gazprom plans to borrow $4.7bn in external debt next year, it said in its 2017 budget.

Russia’s Alfa-Bank re-opened its $400m Basel III additional tier one trade on Tuesday morning, marketing the perpetual note at 8%.

Russia’s Alfa-Bank is planning a tap of its additional tier one securities and will open books on Tuesday this week, according to the leads. As the deal was sold mostly to Russian domestic investors, there are not the usual concerns about pre-Christmas liquidity.

Ukraine’s government on Monday nationalised troubled lender Privatbank, but questions are as yet unanswered for holders of outstanding Eurobonds which are expected to be bailed-in, according to frontier markets investment firm Exotix.

Turkish participation bank Turkiye Finans (TFKB) has agreed a $180m Islamic club loan with similar pricing to its loans in recent years, despite sector-wide downgrades for Turkish banks after a turbulent year in the country in 2016.

Poland broke new ground this week, issuing the first ever sovereign green bond. The deal offers a template to future sovereign borrowers, even though some dedicated SRI accounts would like to see future issuers more clearly identifying projects to finance, writes Virginia Furness.

Emerging markets bonds sold off after the US Federal Reserve indicated a more hawkish tone on Wednesday — but much like what happened after the Brexit result, spreads came off their wides quite quickly.

It’s that time of year when analysts dust off their crystal balls and make predictions for the next 12 months. In December 2015 not many were forecasting that Britain would vote to leave the EU, and even fewer were betting on a Donald Trump presidential victory, so investors would be wise to treat such missives with caution. Political risk is a capricious beast, even for the most seasoned market observers.