Page 9 - BNE_magazine_05_2019

bne May 2019 The Month That Was I 9
Finance
Eastern Europe
Burger Rus, the Russian operation of the Burger King fast food chain, could hold an IPO on the Moscow Exchange this year, Reuters reported on April 22. Reportedly, VTB Capital together with Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan will be organizing the IPO.
Russian rail operator RusTransCom, specialising on transportation of grain, mineral fertilisers, and timber, has postponed its plans to hold an IPO, the company said in a statement. Previously the company unveiled its plans to hold an IPO at the London Stock Exchange and hopes to raise $300mn.
International ratings agency S&P Global Ratings affirmed its 'B-/B' long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit rat- ings on Ukraine with stable outlook, Interfax Ukraine reported on April 15.
The board of Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank has recommended pay- ing RUB16 per share as dividends
for 2018, or a total of RUB361.391bn (5.6bn), CEO German Gref told report- ers on April 16. The payout is more than last year and accounts for 43.5% of the bank’s net profit calculated under IFRS.
Russia’s second-largest bank VTB will pay 15% of net profit for 2018 in divi- dend, the Finance Ministry said on April 23. The Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told the press that the bank will use the rest of net profit to increase its capital. VTB is expected by the ministry to return to divi- dend payments of 50% of net profit in 2019.
Rosneft pays out 50% of IFRS incomes as dividend. Rosneft's BoD yesterday recommended a final divi- dend of RUB11.33 per share for 2018, implying a 2.6% yield and is 50% of income under IFRS.
The growing enthusiasm for Russian equity took a know this week when Russia's largest meat and poultry maker Cherkizovo announced it will postpone its SPO on Moscow Exchange for an undetermined period due to mar- ket conditions, according to the April 10 reports by Vedomosti and Reuters.
Russia's leading job searching service HeadHunter is preparing a $250mn IPO in May-June 2019 on NASDAQ, Vedomosti daily reported on April 11 citing unnamed investment bankers and sources close to the shareholders of the company.
Central Europe
Rating agency Standard & Poor’s affirmed Poland’s foreign currency long- and short-term sovereign credit rating at A-/A-2 with stable outlook. Poland’s rating is underpinned by “diver- sified economy, educated workforce,
EU membership, manageable levels of public and private debt, solid external metrics, and relatively deep domestic capital markets,” S&P said.
Poland will transfer PLN162.3bn (€38bn) worth of assets amassed in the country’s private pensions funds, known as OFEs, to individual pension accounts in 2020, the Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said. The transfer will effectively end the OFEs' role as
one of the pillars of the Polish pension system.
Fitch Ratings affirmed Latvia’s long- term issuer rating at A- with stable outlook. The rating is supported by
the Baltic state's solid public finances, institutional strength, and credible policy framework that come with EU
and Eurozone membership, Fitch wrote, repeating its assessment from the previ- ous rating, released in October.
Southeast Europe
European technology-focused private equity and venture capital firm 3TS Capital Partners will launch Catalyst Romania II, a new fund with a target capitalisation of about €40mn, this year, Wall Street reported. Catalyst Romania II will be mainly for Romania, but will also look for opportunities in neighbouring countries like Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Moldova.
Toronto-listed gas firm Valeura that is testing onshore gas resources in Tur- key’s Thrace basin expects its shares to start trading on the London Stock Exchange in a non-dilutive secondary listing next week. Valeura, operating with Norway’s Equinor, is exploring
the potential to extract gas in Turkey by fracking.
Private equity firm Mid Europa Partners agreed to acquire a major- ity stake in Croatian bakery chain Mlinar, which it plans to expand inter- nationally. Mlinar is already the leading bakery retail and wholesale business in Croatia and operates the largest bakery retail network in Southeast Europe.
Eurasia
London-based Standard Chartered agreed to pay $1.1bn to US and Brit- ish authorities for conducting finan- cial transactions that violated sanc- tions against Iran and other countries. Some of the transactions occurred not long after Standard Chartered settled similar charges in 2012.
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