With the war in Ukraine adding to global volatility in capital markets, investment banking deal flow was weak in central and eastern Europe during 2022 and early 2023, especially for lower-rated names.
“Capital markets in our region had the double whammy of the proximity of the war in Ukraine as well as overall market dislocation and volatility,” says Marzena Fick, Citi’s head of investment banking for central Europe. “Business effectively came to a standstill for the first few months of the war. In a difficult market, a lot of the deal flow will naturally come from the top-tier names, including governments.”
Nevertheless, Citi can still boast a range of client activity across the region that is hard to beat, allowing it to retain the title of central and eastern Europe’s best investment bank.
Citi was bookrunner on Poland’s biggest-ever international bond syndication, a $2.5 billion 10- and 30-year deal in March 2023, and on a maiden sustainability-linked bond from Czech power company CEZ.