Page 9 - bneMag bne_December 2020_20201201

bne December 2020 The Month That Was I 9
Finance
Eastern Europe
Ukraine will not receive its second scheduled IMF tranche of $700mn before the end of this year, analysts concluded after Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine Kyrylo Shevchenko returned from a week of meetings with the multilateral lender in Washington at the start
of November.
Russian fixed-price retailer Fix Price is preparing for an IPO in London
or Moscow with a total valuation of up to $6bn, according to Bloomberg. Reportedly, the offering could take place in 1H21. The founder of the retailer, Sergey Lomakin, confirmed
to Bloomberg that IPO was one of the strategic development options. He also said that a 10% minority stake earlier this year was sold to Goldman Sachs.
23.
Russia’s Ministry of Finance issued
a $3bn Eurobond on the international capital markets to strong demand on November 12 with what analysts called “perfect timing.” MinFin took advantage of the bump in investor sentiment that followed the announcement by US pharmaceutical company Pfizer that
it has developed an anti-coronavirus vaccine with 90% efficacy. The Russian stock market, the ruble and the oil price also rallied.
Russian banking TCS Group posted 29% year-on-year and record growth in income in 3Q20 to RUB12.6bn ($164mn), making a return on equity (ROE) of 45% and beating the consensus expectations by 14%.
Central Europe
Czech billionaire Kretinsky and his Slovak partner Tkac increased their shares in German’s Metro to more than 37% from the current 29.99%. Both investors announced their intention to place an offer to increase their shares in Metro in September.
Czech billionaire Petr Kellner’s PPF Group bought 50% of Turkey's main producer of buses and light trucks Temsa. PPF also owns the Pilsen-based engineering group Skoda Transportation that also makes buses.
The Hungarian government is to buy a 7% stake in the country’s leading digital bank after injecting HUF3bn (€8.3mn) capital into Granit Bank, Finance Minister Mihaly Varga said.
Leading Hungarian lender OTP's 3Q20 earnings massively beat estimates. The bank reported a 14% y/y drop in consolidated after-tax profit to HUF114bn (€316mn). The bank would not issue detailed 2020 guidance due to the high degree of uncertainty. The results were 20% above analysts’ expectations.
Southeast Europe
Polish financial group Getin has hired investment bank Rothschild for the potential sale of its Romanian subsidiary, Idea Bank Romania. Getin Holding took over Idea Bank, formerly Romanian International Bank (RIB), in 2014 from its founder, US businessman Daniel Roberts.
Romania's government has approved the 2021-2022 restructuring plan for the state airline Tarom and state aid, which will be granted after approval from the EC. The restructuring plan's cost is €380mn, half of which should come from the state.
Romania's government launched new bond issues in local currency and euros for individual investors under the Fidelis 2020-2021 programme. The new bonds can be purchased until November 27 and will later be listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB), where individual investors will be able to trade them.
Eurasia
KAZ Minerals' fifth biggest investor RWC Partners voted against a £3bn all-cash buyout offer to take the Kazakh copper miner private. RWC sees the buyout offer, organised by the company’s chairman Oleg Novachuk and KAZ Minerals director Vladimir Kim,
as an under-valuation. RWC owns just under 3.3% of KAZ Minerals.
Uzbekistan placed dual-tranche sovereign international bonds denominated both in dollars and local currency in the amount of $750mn
on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) on November 19, the country’s finance ministry announced. The 3-year benchmark eurobond yield in Uzbekistani som (UZS) was around 15.250%, while for the 10-year dollar- denominated security the yield was around 4.250%, Reuters said.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on November 17 issued the first two green bonds on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange. The ADB raised Kazakhstani tenge (KZT) 13.96bn (€27.4mn) via two 24-month bonds. The proceeds from the issuance will be used to finance climate change adaptation and mitigation projects in the Central Asian nation.
Uzbekistan’s Almalyk mining and metallurgical complex (AMMC) has plans to IPO on the international capital market in 2023. An independent external audit run by Ernst & Young
and KPMG assessed the silver, gold and copper miner’s readiness for a flotation.
www.bne.eu