In a bumper year for Eurobond issuance, JPMorgan once again demonstrated the unrivalled breadth and depth of its debt capital markets franchise in central and eastern Europe.
Under chief executive Jamie Dimon, the US house easily topped the DCM league table for the region in the awards period, racking up 60 deals for an apportioned value of €14.4 billion, according to Dealogic, well ahead of closest rival Citi’s €12 billion from 42 deals.
A substantial chunk of the volume came from sovereign borrowers, as policymakers rushed to finance Covid support packages. JPMorgan was well positioned to take advantage of this trend, acting for 13 governments in the region, often on multiple transactions. These included regular borrowers, such as Hungary and Turkey, as well as frontier names including Albania, Armenia and Uzbekistan.
Bank capital deals were few and far between – although JPMorgan acted for Turkey’s Yapi Kredi on its market-opening dollar tier-2 in January – while other mandates from the sector included a debut issue for Uzbekistan’s Ipoteka Bank, Credit Bank of Moscow’s first euro-denominated outing and the first fully marketed Czech covered bond from Société Générale subsidiary Komercni Banka.