Page 9 - bne_Magazine_May_2017_print

bne May 2017 The Month That Was I 9
Finance
Central Europe
The shares of Polish retail chain Dino gained nearly 8% on the company’s debut on the Warsaw Stock Exchange on April 19. Dino’s PLN1.65bn (€390mn) IPO is only the second float in 2017 to date on the main market, with two tiny IPOs also taking place on the alternative market NewConnect.
Moody’s Investors Service changed its outlook for Slovakia to ‘positive’ from ‘stable, as it affirmed the 'A2' issuer and senior unsecured ratings.
Real estate investment vehicle Grif- fin RE has secured a buy-in from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the international institution announced on April 12, one day ahead of the company's debut on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The EBRD bought a 9.48% stake in Griffin for PLN84.4mn (€19.9mn) as an institution- al investor taking part in the real estate company’s initial public offering (IPO) on the WSE.
The Hungarian central bank wrapped up its Funding for Growth Scheme, hav- ing lent HUF2.46tn (€7.9bn) to just over 36,000 small and medium-sized compa- nies. The MNB launched FGS in 2013 to help boost the economy, as commercial banks had hugely reduced lending in the face of heavy taxes levied on the sector since Fidesz returned to power in 2010.
Southern Europe
Saudi Arabia-based Islamic Develop- ment Bank is in talks to buy a stake in
Turkey’s stock exchange, Borsa Istanbul. With a market capitalisation of more than $200bn, Borsa Istanbul is one of the largest stock exchanges in its region.
Moody's Investors Service has changed the outlook on its ratings for Romania to stable from positive, fol- lowing the country’s expansionary fiscal policy. At the same time, it has affirmed the Baa3 long-term issuer rating and senior unsecured ratings.
Eastern Europe
Russian retail bank Tinkoff announced its intention to launch
a virtual mobile operator in the net- work of Tele2. Sources close to the deal told Vedomosti daily that the launch is planned for the end of 2017 or beginning of 2018.
Ukraine has reached a deal with The Bitfury Group, a global full-service blockchain technology company, to
put government electronic data onto a blockchain platform providing potential for the country to become “Europe's innovative leader”, Minister without Portfolio Oleksandr Sayenko wrote on his Facebook account.
Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender,
has shrugged off concerns about Brexit by committing another £4.5mn ($5.6mn) to its troubled London investment bank.
Uralsib has sold its UK subsidiary for an undisclosed sum to an emerging markets brokerage firm. As part of the
sale, the Uralsib brand has been dropped in favour of ITI Capital. The deal was co-financed by Da Vinci Capital, a pri- vate equity manager based in Moscow headed by Oleg Jelezko.
The widely-respected governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), Valeri- ya Gontareva, confirmed that she intends to resign from her post, amid protests by certain groups that accuse her of trying to protect the Ukrainian subsidiaries of Russian banks.
Eurasia
South Korea's Kookmin Bank sold its 41.93% stake in Kazakhstan’s Bank CenterCredit to a Kazakh investor consortium, including Tsesnabank and Bakhytbek Baiseitov (which owns 44.5% of Tsesnabank). CenterCredit Bank is fifth-ranked by assets ($4.1bn) in Kazakhstan.
The Kazakh central bank has ordered Kazakhstan's biggest lender, Kazkom- mertsbank (KKB), to devise a plan
to create KZT908bn ($2.9bn) in loan loss provisions. The regulator said back in March that a state-run "bad bank", the Problem Loans Fund, is to buy out KZT2.4tn ($7.5bn) worth of bad assets from KKB, paving the way for a takeover by its rival, Halyk Bank, the second larg- est in the sector.
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