Page 52 - bneMag February 2021_20210202

52 I Southeast Europe
Montenegro’s special prosecution probes finance minister over €750mn Eurobond issue
bne February 2021
Denitsa Koseva in Sofia
Montenegro’s special prosecution has launched a probe into Finance Minister Milojko Spajic’s role in the issuance of a €750mn Eurobond in December 2020, a few days after the government was elected.
The bond was placed on December 10, just three days after the government took office, and was not announced in advance. However, the actions of Spajic and of Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic related to the bond have raised numerous questions in the country regarding the way they took the decision and whether the bond was actually necessary.
At the time, Spajic announced the successful placement of the Eurobond on Twitter and said that he country has been “saved from bankruptcy” by the Eurobond issue after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hammered the local economy.
The special prosecution decided to launch the probe after being contacted
by local NGO Montenegro International, which claimed that the prosecution should establish based on which law Spajic organised the bond issue and
via which banks and brokers, public broadcaster RTCG reported on January 25. The NGO claimed that Spajic had a personal interest in the bond placement.
Moreover, the NGO suggested the
bond placement might be related to an alleged attempt to bribe Montenegro’s Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic. Abazovic has reported being offered a bribe shortly after becoming a minister but gave no further details.
Meanwhile, the finance ministry released details on the bond issue, revealing that the UK-based law company Linklaters was hired as a legal consultant for the procedure.
The Eurobond carries a 2.875% coupon. The demand was almost €3bn, Spajic said at the time.
The new Montenegrin government's second session on December 10, the day the Eurobond was issued.
The country was badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic, reporting one of Europe’s highest infection rates in the early autumn. Over 39,000 cases have been confirmed since the start of the pandemic among a population of just 628,000.
The large tourism sector contributing around 20% of GDP, suffered from the spring lockdown and international travel restrictions, contributing to one of the deepest economic contractions across the emerging Europe region.
Even ahead of the crisis, Montenegro had a high level of debt, having borrowed heavily from China’s Eximbank to finance construction of the Bar-Boljare highway. In the third quarter of 2020, the public debt-to- GDP ratio stood at 78.1%, and it was pushed up further by the Eurobond in December.
bne:Tech
Contents
Top stories
Russia’s top retail and tech companies join forces to hunt for innovations in the rest of the world 2 Ukraine-born startups raised more
than half a billion dollars in 2019 4 Russian video streaming platforms
gain speed 5 Cloud services take off in Russia 6 SEMrush to SEO success 8
Leaders 9
Russia’s internet giant Yandex
announces growing and more
diversified revenues in 2019 10 Russian telecom major Rostelecom misses on earnings in 4Q19, cash
flow solid 12
Investment 13
World Bank approves $35mn project
to modernise Kyrgyz tax administration and statistical system 13 Romanian online home decoration
retailer raises €3.5mn in bonds 14 Russian billionaires Abramovich, Gutseriev, said to invest in Telegram
crypto project TON 14 Russian fund Da Vinci Capital gets
€30mn from Germany’s DEG to invest
in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan 15
Fintech & E-commerce 16
Russian e-commerce major
Wildberries to add self-employed
vendor products to offering 16 Russian Dixy retailer to launch online sales with Ozon 17 Valuation of Sistema’s e-commerce
asset Ozon boosted to $1.8bn 17
Telecom 19
Makedonski Telekom’s net profit
up 6% y/y in 2019 19 Romanian telco Digi grows by double
digit rates in 2019 19 Russia could postpone 5G rollout
from 2022 to 2024 20
NIBs 21
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Russia’s top retail and tech companies
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BAs Russia’s retail and tech sectors consolidate, the leading companies are turned their gaze outwards to hunt for
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new technology and innovation.
See page 2
Ukraine-born startups raised more
than half a billion dollars in 2019
In 2019, the venture capital and private equity funding volume for Ukrainian and Ukrainian-founded tech startups reached $544mn (up from $323mn in 2018 and $265mn in 2017), says AVentures Capital’s latest industry report ”DealBook of Ukraine”,
reports Adrien Henni of Ukraine Digital News. See page 4
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