Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

Russian steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) has arranged a syndicated loan of around $400m, after a long and protracted grappling with lending banks.

The Republic of Latvia has released initial price guidance at 40bp area over mid-swaps for its new 10 year euro denominated bond, representing only a 20bp new issue premium, but a doubling of the sovereign’s secondary spreads, according to bankers away from the note.

The Republic of Latvia has mandated DNB, HSBC and Natixis to arrange a 10 year euro denominated benchmark bond, its first since the start of ECB sovereign bond buying.

International syndicated lending to Russia this year is running at its lowest volume since 2001, and less than a third of the total lent by this point last year, according to Dealogic.

In this round-up, Chinese premier Li Keqiang said RMB internationalisation to continue, South Korea's RMB deposits halving in a few months, HKMA revamps its RMB liquidity facility, Singapore Exchange and Moscow Exchange see surging RMB trade volumes, Shanghai Gold Exchange expands its list of assets that can be used as collateral for trading to A-shares and foreign currencies, and Deutsche Bank joins OTC Clear as a clearing member.

Estonian power company Eesti Energia opened books on a new euro transaction on Thursday morning, following the deadline for a tender offer on its outstanding bonds the day before.

Polish state owned power company Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE) has picked banks for a benchmark euro transaction.

Estonian power company Eesti Energia opened books on a new euro transaction on Thursday morning, following the deadline for a tender offer on its outstanding bonds the day before.

Russian fertiliser producer Eurochem signed a $750m pre-export credit facility, it was revealed on Wednesday, having been in talks with banks since the end of last year.

Holders of Privatbank’s 2015 bonds agreed to a reprofiling, the lender announced this week. But the terms of the agreement present those same bondholders with an incentive to scupper a similar agreement on Privatbank’s 2016 notes, analysts said.

Bulgarian Energy Holding, the state electricity and gas group, is looking for €650m of loans as part of a renegotiation with two US power generators.

Ukraine’s creditors should be concerned that the IMF has not yet defined the status of a $3bn Eurobond that Ukraine sold to Russia, said Ukrainian analysts following a IMF/Ukraine government press conference on Sunday.