Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

Emerging market bankers are optimistic for a busy first quarter after markets opened on Tuesday in a much stronger position than they had a year ago. Sovereign issuers from the Middle East and CEE are expected to lead the charge.

In late 2016 a clutch of Russian borrowers shrugged off Western sanctions and domestic stagnation to return to the global bond markets. But will investors’ returning appetite for Russian risk survive a global repricing? Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker reports

The global rise in dollar funding, combined with political upheaval and the heavy depreciation of the lira are destroying some of the historically borrower-friendly terms available in the Turkish loan market. Elly Whittaker reports.

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.