Middle East

Middle Eastern loans bankers are preparing for even more M&A from the region in the coming months, with the United Arab Emirates tipped to continue driving asset sales.

A holding company owned by Dubai’s Oger Telecom has come to an agreement with all of its lending banks to give control of Turk Telekom to creditors, after months of restructuring talks on a $4.75bn loan.

MUFG announced this week that it has appointed a new international head of credit sales and trading.

As the trade tension deepens between the US and its counterparts, fund investors have fled to US bonds and equities, leaving emerging market fund outflows on the rise for the most part of 2018.

Frontier markets specialists Exotix Capital has made four new appointments to its EM sales business, expanding its coverage in four different geographies.

Akbank is due to send out invitation letters for its late summer one year syndicated loan by the end of this week, according to a source close to the Turkish lender.

Turkish banks are later than usual on their syndicated loan refinancing timetables amid political noise in the country, and loans bankers say it will soon be too late for the banks to roll the deals over, and they might instead have to take the unusual step of repaying the debt.

Turkey was driven further into financial instability and chaos this week, reflected in tumbling asset prices and the lira being at near record lows, after the country's president Recep Erdoğan delivered a further blow to investor confidence with a cabinet reshuffle.

The outlook for Turkish IPOs is bleak after the country’s president, Recep Erdoğan, appointed a new cabinet which included his son-in-law as new finance minister.

Turkey’s Akbank will not refinance its one year loan signed last August until September, as that corresponds to when the borrower drew down on the facility, a source close to the bank said.

Turkish banks are running late on their syndicated loan refinancing timetables amid political noise in the country, and loans bankers say it will soon be too late for the banks to rollover the deals and will instead have to take the unusual step of repaying the debt.

Turkey’s president Recep Erdoğan delivered a shock to investors on Monday, announcing a cabinet reshuffle in which he removed market favourites Mehmet Simsek, who was deputy prime minister, and Naci Agbal, minister of finance. He appointed his son-in-law Berat Albayrak, who previously served as energy minister, as finance minister.