Page 9 - bne_Magazine_September_2018

bne September 2018 The Month That Was I 9
Finance
Eastern Europe
The Ukrainian banking sector made a net profit of UAH8.3bn ($305mn) in January-June, according to the NBU’s August banking sector review. The banking sector reported a moderate loss of UAH400mn in April-June due to the raising of additional provisioning by one large bank in April-June.
Privately owned Russian oil major Surgutneftegaz remains investment banks' top pick as they expect it to pay out a massive 19% dividend yield this season. The company has benefited from a reduction in costs due to the ruble’s devaluation and high average oil prices.
Mortgages are booming in Russia with the volumes of credits issued expanding by 60% y/y, according to the website Dom.rf. Russia is on course to issue 1.5mn mortgage loans worth more than RUB3 trillion rubles this year or 1.5 times higher than in 2017.
Once Russia’s largest insurer, Rosgoss- trakh has been losing money hand over fist as it tries to get out of the obligatory insuring business. Now it has cut premiums and returned to profit: In the first half of the year, Rosgosstrakh earned RUB2.4bn for the first time in three years.
Russia’s state-owned de facto devel- opment bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) says it will close its Ukrainian subsidiary as Russian banks continue to withdraw from their neighbouring market.
Ukraine’s Finance Ministry raised the equivalent of UAH2.4bn ($87mn) at its weekly auction held on August 14, which is worst than the previous week, when it raised the equivalent of UAH12.6bn ($246.4mn, €69mn and UAH3.8bn) at two auctions. However, demand for locally issued dollar bonds is now falling.
Leading Russian mobile phone com- pany Megafon has obtained a three- year RUB21bn loan from Alfa-Bank to buy out its own shares and take the company private again, the company said in a statement on August 15.
T-bills and two-year T-bonds in two auctions, the central bank said. Albania has sold around ALL223.5bn in T-bills and T-bonds so far in 2018. It raised ALL328bn in government securities
in 2017.
Eurasia
Kazakhstan’s national currency hit KZT363.97 against the dollar on August 14 – falling to a new 30-month low. The all-time weakest tenge to the dollar rate of KZT382 occurred in early 2016.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) plans to provide over $300mn to Tajikistan in the 2019-2021 period, its vice-president Wencai Zhang said on August 13. To date, ADB has approved over $1.6bn in concessionary loans, grants, and technical assistance for Tajikistan since the country joined the ADB in 1998.
State-run Uzbekinvest’s insurance premiums tripled in annual terms to UZS112bn (€12.5mn) in the first half of 2018, the local press reported. Uzbeki- stan's insurance sector has likely been stimulated by ongoing reforms intro- duced by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirzi- yoyev. Total payments by Uzbekinvest were made to the tune of UZS11.5bn,
up by 32% from the previous year.
Armenia intends to issue bonds that will tap its vast diaspora, estimated
at 7-10mn people worldwide. The dias- pora far outnumbers the impoverished post-Soviet nation’s population of 2.9mn and the government hopes to issue a strategy by the end of this year.
TBC Bank Group PLC’s subsidiary JSC TBC Bank has signed a $50mn loan agreement with the China Develop- ment Bank (CDB), the Georgian bank- ing group announced on August 13. The deal is the first signed between the two banks, and the largest facility CDB has ever provided to any Georgian entity.
Southeast Europe
Hungary's state debt manager AKK sold a combined HUF61.5bn (€187mn) of bonds at auctions on August 16, HUF6.5bn more than planned but at higher costs as yields moved up from the last auction two weeks ago. Jitters over Turkey's falling currency have weighted on bond prices and local currencies across Central Europe. The forint weakened to 325 versus the euro on Wednesday but pared losses as the lira bounced back. Bond prices were also on a rollercoaster this week.
Kosovo sold its entire issue of €20mn in one-year T-bills in an auction on August 14, the central bank announced on August 16. This was the fourth one- year T-bills auction held this year. Koso- vo plans to raise a total of €105mn in the third quarter of 2018.
Macedonia sold out MKD25bn (€406.5mn) of 28-day central bank (CB) bills on August 15, the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia (NBRM) announced. The bank uses
CB bills to manage liquidity in the bank- ing system. At the same time the central bank cut the key rate, which is also the rate of the CB bills, from 3% to 2.75%.
Albania plans to raise a combined ALL12.7bn (€101mn) in one-year
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