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bne December 2018 The Month That Was I 9
Finance
Eastern Europe
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has declared the Ukrainian operations of Russia's state-owned VTB Bank insolvent following weeks of snowball- ing liquidity crisis, the regulator said in
a statement published on November 27.
Leading Belarusian supermarket chain Eurotorg (aka Euroopt) has postponed what would have been the small northern republic’s first ever IPO that was due to be floated on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) blaming poor market conditions, the company announced on November 6.
Russia's largest coal producer SUEK is considering an IPO and plans to boost its output by 18% or 20mn tonnes by 2020. The potentially headline-making IPO ambitious are still vague, however, as the company is interested in both "public debt and public equity", with no specific timing in place.
Verno Capital and SPRING, two leading fund managers that special- ise in the Russian and CIS markets, announced plans to merge their public asset management businesses to create a $500mn investment manage- ment firm focused on Russia and the CIS region. The two funds are managed by investment legends David Herne and Roland Nash respectively.
Russian state-owned banking giant Sberbank has delayed the sale of its Turkish subsidiary Denizbank until the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019, the bank said on November 1. Earlier, Sberbank had expected to sell its Turkish assets to the Arab bank Emirates NBD before the end of 2018.
Central Europe
The Polish financial market regula- tor KNF launched an internal probe after its former head was accused of corruption by a banker, the watchdog's
acting head said. Former boss Marek Chrzanowski was accused by billionaire banker Leszek Czarnecki of soliciting
a bribe in return for KNF’s favourable approach to a Czarnecki-controlled bank, Getin Noble Bank.
Trading volumes fell on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in October. Trading on the WSE’s main equities market totalled PLN16.5bn (€3.8bn) during the month, falling 22.6% y/y, the bourse said.
Czech President Milos Zeman appoint- ed Czech National Bank (CNB) board members Ales Michl and Tomas Holub and two vice-governors Mark Mora
and Tomas Nidetzky. The CNB's board consisting of seven members determines the country's monetary policy and measures.
The average mortgage rate in the Czech Republic rose to 2.66% in Octo- ber from 2.57% in September, accord- ing to Fincentrum Hypoindex data. The mortgage volume reached its highest level in October as an after-effect of the central bank's tightening of the mort- gages rules. It may continue to rise this year, analysts anticipate.
Moldova’s central bank governor resigned. Sergiu Cioclea said he had “fulfilled his mission”, even though there are still substantial challenges facing the country’s banking system, in particular the failure to recover the $1bn stolen from three commercial banks before 2015.
The Slovenian central bank approved the takeover of Slovenia’s Gorenjska Banka by Serbian AIK Banka. Fol- lowing the decision, the Serbian bank majority-owned by businessman Mio- drag Kostic will become majority owner of Gorenjska.
Bosnia is seeking at least €39.3mn for its stake in Ljubija mine in the latest attempt at privatisation. The govern- ment of Bosnia & Herzegovina’s Serb- dominated entity Republika Srpska
has invited interested investors to bid for the state-owned 65% stake in the Ljubija mine.
The Serbian central bank kept
the key policy rate at 3% for the seventh consecutive month. The last time the NBS cut the key rate, from 3.25%, was in April 2018.
Eurasia
Turnover on the Baku Stock Exchange (BFB) declined to AZN1.9bn (€984mn) in October, down from AZN2.4bn the previous month, data posted on the bourse’s website showed. In annual terms, turn- over was up slightly from AZN1.6bn in October 2017.
Kazakhstan’s state-run pension
fund bought one-third of the 15% stake floated by Kazatomprom,
the world’s largest uranium miner, in the $450mn initial public offering (IPO) held in London and Astana. The listing was the first IPO made by a Kazakh company in over a decade.
Southeast Europe
Raiffeisen Bank will lend Romanian electric locomotives producer Softonice €14mn to finance the production and delivery of six locomotives, EximBank, which is guaranteeing the loan, said. Estab- lished in the southwestern city of Craiova in 1999, Softronic is the only producer of electric locomotives in Eastern Europe.
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