Page 7 - BNE_magazine_07_2020

bne July 2020 The Month That Was I 7
Finance
Eastern Europe
Russia's largest bank, state-controlled Sberbank, will miss its RUB1 trillion ($14.3bn) net profit target for 2020, the CEO of the bank, German Gref said.
Timber company Segezha Group
that is part of the AFK Sistema conglomerate plans an IPO as soon as the market recovers, according to the company’s CEO. Orignally the IPO was slated for 1H20 but was delayed because of the coronacrisis.
Russian IT developer IBS called off
an IPO of its shares planned since 2018, the company announced. IBS
had increased its share capital in 2018 by 25mn shares on open subscription, eyeing an IPO, but the worsening market conditions had postponed the placement on Moscow Exchange.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has imposed
a minor fine of $18.5mn on TON, the crypto platform of Telegram messenger. One of the conditions of the deal with SEC is paying back $1.22bn of investment in the Gram tokens. In 2018 Telegram raised $1.7bn from 171 investment funds and wealthy individuals with an ICO in early 2018, including 39 US investors.
The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved a $350mn First Economic Recovery Development Policy Loan (DPL) on June 26 for Ukraine “in support of reforms that are critical to economic recovery and to help mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the multinational lender said in a statement.
Ukraine's prosecutor general's office upheld previous court decisions
and closed a case in which ex-owner of VAB Bank Oleh Bakhmatiuk
was accused of illegally receiving a UAH1.2bn ($45mn) stabilisation loan from the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) in the autumn of 2014.
Central Europe
The average mortgage interest rate in the Czech Republic fell to 2.3% in May, down from 2.39% in April, going back to the level of early
2018, according to data published by Fincentrum Hypoindex on June 17.
In terms of the number of mortgages provided, May this year was the weakest May in the last ten years.
Demand for Hungary's popular five-year government bond was dampened as the lockdown eased. Sales of the five-year retail bond MAP Plus reached HUF147bn (€415mn) in June, unchanged from the previous month and came in slightly below the HUF155bn in new subscriptions in April.
Hungary plans to create the country's second biggest lender by merging three banks, state-owned Budapest Bank, MKB Bank and savings and loans group Takarek (MTB), a government minister said, as reported by Reuters
on June 18. The assets of the new bank are to amount to HUF5.8 trillion ($18.93bn).
Southeast Europe
The European Commission has approved a €600mn Slovenian scheme to support companies affected by the coronavirus pandemic that will offer direct grants, payment advantages and wage subsidies to help companies.
Net profit of Slovenia’s commercial banks plunged 53.5% year on year in the first four months of 2020,
to €83.9mn, the central bank said. Slovenian banks’ net interest income dropped 1.3% to €218.3mn through April, while non-interest income fell 24.4% to €132.3mn, central bank data showed.
Deutsche Börse's Clearstream international central securities depositary (ICSD) will connect the
local Romanian central securities depository (CSD) Depozitarul Central to its network at the beginning of July.
The funds earmarked for Romania under the Just Transition Fund (JTF), aimed at helping European Union countries cut CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030, have been revised upward significantly from €0.7bn to €4.4bn, as the total size of the fund was increased by €7.5bn to €40bn. Romania is still dependent on coal-fired power stations for its energy.
The largest pension fund manager in Romania, NN Pensii, part of NN group, says that the collapse of the Wirecard shares did not affect the two million contributors to the Pillar II pension fund it manages. An owner of the stock, the fund said that it sold its stake before Wirecard got into trouble.
The mandatory and voluntary private pension funds recovered in April- May nearly all of their losses recorded in March due to the coronacrisis and boasted positive yet marginal real annual yields as of May. On a year- to-year basis, the mandatory private pension funds posted growth rates
of between 3.8% (the fund managed by NN) and 6.1% (the fund managed by BCR).
The European Commission said it has approved a BGN200mn (€102mn) scheme for Bulgaria that will be used for grants of up to €75,000 to companies and should help them gain liquidity and continue operations after the outbreak.
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