Page 9 - bne_newspaper_February_02_2018

bne February 2018 The Month That Was I 9
Finance
Eastern Europe
Some 5mn new credit cards have been issued in Russia so far in 2017, which is 45.6% more in the same period a year earlier, according to National Bureau
of Credit History. Newly issued loans reached 21% of total final household spending in the first half of 2017, which is above the 15-18% during 2015-2016 crisis, but still below the 25-27% seen in pre-crisis 2013-2014.
Half of all Sberbank’s earnings will be paid out as dividends by 2020, the bank's CEO German Gref told at the investors' day in London on December 14. However, the new dividend policy was not included in a board meeting on the bank’s strategy later the same week.
Shares of Russian internet giant Yandex hit an all-time high on the Moscow Stock Exchange on Novem- ber 24 on the news that merger of the company's taxi service with Uber had been approved by the local regulator. The company’s share price peaked at RUB2,025 ($35.6) on November 24 and the shares closed at RUB2,025.
Russians have given up on saving and are borrowing more instead to fund their lifestyle, data from the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) shows. Borrowing from banks has doubled over the last eight years since the crisis began and two thirds of Russians say they have no savings at all, up from just over half in the last year. Russians borrowed from banks RUB12 trillion ($210bn)
in January-November 2017.
Ukraine’s cash-strapped government is toying with the idea of forcing
state-owned enterprises (SOE) to pay out 75% of their 2017 net profit in dividends in 2018, up from the 50% of their 2016 net income they were obliged to pay this year.
Central Europe
The Slovak government will borrow a gross €4.5bn in 2018 via bonds, treasury bills and loans to cover the budget deficit and bond redemptions, the government’s Debt and Liquidity Management agency Ardal announced. This marks a fall of around 30% from the around 6bn borrowed this year.
Southeast Europe
The cluster of countries in the Western Balkans included on a so-called “greylist” of tax havens by the European Union deserve to be on Brussels' fully fledged blacklist, a report from charity Oxfam argued. Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia are all among the 47 countries on the EU’s watchlist of countries that have promised to change their tax rules to meet the bloc’s standards.
The gross non-performing loan (NPL) ratio of Albanian commercial banks fell further to 14.32% at the end of November, from 20.44% a year earlier. The NPL ratio is now 10 percentage points below its 2014 peak.
Macedonia issued a seven-year €500mn Eurobond with an annual interest rate of 2.75%. This is the sixth Eurobond issue placed so far by Mace- donia’s finance ministry with the lowest interest rate so far.
Slovenian brokerage Ilirika acquired one of Serbia’s oldest and largest brokers, Wisebroker. Wisebroker has around 12,000 clients and manages a portfolio of around €10mn.
Eurasia
Iran’s home mortgages market got
a new competitor with Bank Melli
Iran moving into the business as part
of a push to break the monopoly held
by Bank Maskan. The central bank has changed the rules to allow all of Iran’s banks to enter the mortgage market, but poor anticipated returns have curtailed interest.
The Development Bank of Kazakhstan
issued the first ever tenge-denominat- ed eurobond, raising the equivalent of $300mn from a three year note. Yield guidance was 9.625%-9.875% before pricing tightened to 9.625%.
Kazakhstan’s Bank of Astana (Astana Banki) is conducting an SPO on the Moscow Stock Exchange in what is the first placement of shares by a foreign bank on the bourse.
Kazakh state uranium miner Kazatomprom reportedly hired JP Morgan as its lead adviser for a Lon- don listing planned for 2018. Up to 25% of the company is to be floated.
Turkmenistan set a new limit on mon- ey transfers from local bank cards to Visa cards which can be cashed abroad. It halved the monthly limit to $500. The country is battling an economic crisis and is striving to keep hard currency circulating domestically.
Azerbaijan's financial market watch- dog revoked the operating licence of Demirbank, a medium-sized lender. It had been struggling for several quarters with low capitalisation and with repay- ing creditors.
Assets of the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) contracted by 28.9% y/y to AZN8.7bn ($5.1bn) in 2017. The lender underwent a restructuring of its debt last year, whereby $3.3bn worth
of foreign obligations were swapped for government-backed ones in a state rescue.
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