Russia

Russian Railways is embarking on a roadshow to market the first ever green Swiss franc bond from Russia, even as fears of the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus continue to infect EM bond trading.

Russian nickel and palladium producer Norilsk Nickel has refinanced an existing facility and in the process has increased the size of the deal and shaved the margins. According to bank lenders, the deal is one of many expected to enter the market by Russian borrowers seeking to obtain more attractive terms amid a drought in activity.

Two large Moscow listings moved closer to launch this week, a boost for Russian equity investors who have not seen any large IPO activity since the Detsky Mir listing in 2017.

Sibur, the Russian petrochemicals company, is unlikely to go public in 2020 because of unfavourable macroeconomic conditions, its CFO tells GlobalCapital.

The US Treasury slapped sanctions on a Rosneft subsidiary on Tuesday for brokering sales of Venezuelan crude oil that supported president Nicolás Maduro’s government. Some expect this to be the first of similar actions, in the run up to the US presidential election.

Gazprom returned to the Eurobond market for the first time in a year on Tuesday, pulling in $4bn of orders at one stage in the pricing process, despite the US sanctioning a Rosneft subsidiary.

Equity capital markets investors should prepare for a pipeline of new Russian stock market listings for as early as this year, according to several bankers working on the deals. A strong year for block sales in 2019 will be followed by some sizeable IPO activity on the Moscow exchange.

Gazprom has released initial price guidance for a 10 year dollar benchmark at 3.625% area. A US investor said the deal was a “buy”.

Yury Kiselev has been promoted at Société Générale to head of debt capital markets for central and eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Russia.

Russian borrowers are hitting the loan market early this year, as they push for tighter margins and looser covenants as volumes shrink. Norilsk Nickel, the nickel and palladium producer, is refinancing an existing $2.5bn facility, which bankers say will have tighter margins than the original deal that boasted the slimmest margins of any Russian syndicated loan in 2017. But not all lenders are as willing to concede to the Russians, writes Mariam Meskin.

The risk that huge amounts of oil and gas assets will be stranded by moves to tackle the climate emergency may be more pertinent for sovereign credit than for private sector corporate debt, according to new research.

Credit Bank of Moscow sold its $600m five year bond “flat to the curve” on Wednesday, according to a syndicate official on the deal.