Russia

Russian Railways will attempt to revive the eurorouble format on Friday following a hugely successful dollar market return the previous day.

Russia’s EuroChem is the latest issuer from the country to conduct a liability management exercise and is planning to refinance a buy-back of its $750m 2017s with a new dollar bond.

Days after China made the landmark decision to appoint a US renminbi clearing bank, it has made yet another clear political statement by appointing Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Moscow as Russia’s clearing bank, with a bond market link also in the making.

With a $7.5bn book and a deal sold wholly to international investors, Russia returned to the capital markets in style on Thursday, shrugging off the ghosts of failure that blighted its return in May.

With clearing concerns behind it, Russia’s $1.25bn tap of its 2026s bonds was met with massive demand on Thursday — the book was reported to be over $6bn — but some say a moral dilemma remains.

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Russian Railways (RZD) is weighing up the first rouble Eurobond for several years as low global yields boost support for rouble denominated debt.

Fertiliser producer EuroChem signed a $800m pre-export finance facility (PXF) refinancing last week, with the borrower shuffling its bank group as Chinese lenders play a growing role in Russian corporate loans.

Russia wasted no time reopening its 2026s after the US Federal Reserve left rates unchanged on Wednesday. Now Euroclearable, the tap is expected to achieve plenty of demand from investors who didn’t play the first time round, but some say a moral dilemma remains.

O1 Properties printed the first syndicated international deal from the Russian property sector on Tuesday. While lead bankers acknowledged it was not an easy deal, the issuer was able to increase it from the planned $300m to $350m.

Russian issuers dominated the first half of the week in emerging market bonds but the attention is now on Polish financial mBank which has braved coming on the same day as the US Federal Reserve announces its interest rate decision.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has penalised Russia’s VTB Bank and its London-based VTB Capital investment banking subsidiary over what the Commission called "fictitious" and "non-competitive" block trades of Russian ruble/US dollar futures contracts.