Emerging Europe

AIG Global Real Estate is one of the largest and most prolific investors in emerging markets. Now that Brazil, Russia, India and China are the focus of almost every big investor and developer, the US-based firm is far ahead of the pack. The group’s president, Kevin Fitzpatrick, speaks to Rachel Wolcott about AIG’s history in emerging markets and why enthusiasm for these markets might be overdone.

Mid Europa Partners, the leading independent private equity firm focused on central and eastern Europe, has established a notable benchmark for the industry in the region, raising €1.5 billion in commitments for its latest fund, Mid Europa Fund III.

The strong run of emerging markets equities looks set to continue.

After a pause prompted by US-inspired volatility in the global equity markets, Russian companies have resumed new-issue activity, helped by the belief that the strong economic environment in the country will help insulate it from the effects of the fallout from the US.

Two of Kazakhstan’s leading companies are poised to fully test investor sentiment towards the central Asian state in the coming weeks, with big transactions in the debt and equity markets.

US buyout firm Carlyle Group has expanded its Warsaw-based central and eastern European team with the appointment of three professionals. Janusz Guy has been named a managing director, and Aleksander Kacprzyk and Piotr Nocen come in as directors. They join the team established and led by managing director Ryszard Wojtkowski.

Alfa Bank has become the first privately owned Russian bank to raise overseas funding in the post-credit crunch era.

State-owned, cash-rich and increasingly influential, sovereign wealth funds have emerged as the most controversial players in the financial markets. All the constituents – banks, private equity, corporates, hedge funds – want a slice of their action. Just how powerful will the funds become? Sudip Roy reports.

Kazakhstan looks set to be the CIS region’s biggest victim of the fallout from the problems in the US sub-prime mortgage market, with the country’s banks seen as the most vulnerable in the Commonwealth of Independent States to any reduction in global liquidity. In recent weeks, the country has been hit by ratings downgrades, whipsawing bond and equity prices, and pressure on the currency. Furthermore, the track record of the banking regulators – previously regarded as the best in the region – is now beginning to look tarnished.

Interest in emerging market high-yield debt is at an all-time high.

The Euromoney debt trading poll is in its second year, and quite a year it has been. Twelve months ago credit houses were hosing their customers with liquidity in a market awash with happy traders. The action had moved out of the cash market and into a thriving derivatives sector. Structured products and indices were flourishing. "You are no longer a bond trader," Henrik Raber, head of credit trading at UBS, was saying to his staff. "You are a trader in multiple asset classes."

"We want to be the Singapore of Europe." That’s the striking slogan employed by Gligor Tashkovich, Macedonia’s minister of foreign investment. Speaking at Euromoney’s Regional Finance & Investment for South East Europe Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia, Tashkovich told delegates that the Balkan republic is pulling out all the stops in an attempt to secure the necessary foreign funds to help turn the country into a centre for hi-tech assembly and manufacturing. Tashkovich says that the centre-right government that came to power in late August 2006 is slashing its way through red tape and providing special incentives that it believes will transform Macedonia from a still primarily agrarian economy to one that is more knowledge-based.

Monte Kristo Capital of the UK is the latest foreign entrant to the burgeoning Georgian banking market, having bought a 70% stake in Tetri Bank for an undisclosed sum. Following the deal, Tetri Bank, the country’s 16th biggest bank by assets, will be renamed First British Bank. Monte Kristo’s move is the latest in a series of acquisitions by foreign banking groups in recent months. France’s Société Générale, Russia’s VTB and Ukraine’s Privatbank have all bought banks in the Caucasian republic.

New-issue activity in the securitization markets of Russia and the CIS has dried up in recent months but VTB Bank Europe is clearly banking on a recovery. The London-based investment banking arm of VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank, has added Eke Neumann as head of retail securitization and Daniel Stadnik as head of commercial securitization. Neumann joins from DZ Bank, and Stadnik was previously at ABN Amro. Both new hires will report to Alex Medlock, head of securitization.

The news that spot rouble trades have taken place electronically on EBS and LavaFX between Russian and foreign banks has been taken by some observers as proof that the currency has taken a significant step towards full convertibility. However, the deals mask the fact that Russia’s settlement system is still a real impediment to the rouble’s wider acceptance and is harming the government’s hopes that it will one day be accepted as a reserve currency.

Market participants will live to regret not getting their own houses in order.

In a move that highlights the broadening appeal of products that offer convenient access to Russia, Lyxor Asset Management has launched the first UK-listed exchange traded fund to cover the Russian equity market. The Lyxor ETF Russia, which is based on the Dow Jones Rusindex Titans 10 index covering the 10 biggest Russian companies by market capitalization, is being offered alongside a family of new ETFs covering all four of the big emerging market economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. ETFs are index-tracking funds that track the performance of a given index and combine the simplicity and liquidity of shares with the diversification benefits of a traditional collective investment scheme. Since Lyxor ETFs are traded on multiple broker-dealer platforms on leading exchanges, they are designed to offer investors maximum liquidity while levying low annual management fees in the 0.15% to 0.85% range.

As Euromoney went to press, Bank Saint Petersburg was set to provide an important test of investor sentiment towards the Russian banking sector, with the bank’s initial public offering sure to be closely watched as an indicator of investor appetite for Russian banking assets in the wake of the fallout from the problems in the US sub-prime mortgage market. Joint bookrunners Deutsche Bank and Renaissance Capital set the price range for the IPO at $4.35 to $5.65 per share and $13.05 to $16.95 per global depositary receipt. Post-IPO the bank should have a market capitalization of $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion. As of July, BSPB was the 27th biggest Russian bank by assets

Leading specialist emerging market fund manager Ashmore Investment Management believes that local-currency and high-yield corporate debt could be the prime way for investors to take advantage of US dollar weakness and sub-prime mortgage concerns in the coming year.

Many economic indicators in Turkey remain strongly positive despite internal political crises and flashpoints on the country’s borders. David Judson reports.

A new study confirms the substantial benefits of a depositary receipt programme.

The credit market seizure vindicated a few brave hedge fund managers who had spotted the sub-prime crash coming, positioned themselves deftly, and made huge returns from it. These managers recount the challenges of deploying funds against the long-only herd, outline expectations for worse market disruptions ahead and analyze the public policy responses that threaten the potential returns of many investors now seeking to profit from distress. Peter Lee reports.

The most striking feature of the subprime crisis is how the failure by cash-strapped house buyers in California to meet their mortgage payments could have had such far-reaching consequences.

Your shareholder agreement in Russia is probably unenforceable. Here's why

After the crash, here comes CASH

Flotation gives big boost to Zagreb market.

The fallout from sub-prime worries in the US has cast a pall over the equity issuance plans of Russian companies in the wake of the volatility that rocked global stock markets over the summer.

The credit crisis that began in the US sub-prime mortgage markets has had inevitable consequences for corporates’ short-term investment decisions.

Cash management is a hugely attractive business for the banks that have ended up at the top of the consolidation pile, with earnings stability and high returns on equity. And despite reductions in activity because of such developments as the Single Euro Payments Area, new business is emerging in white-labelled products and financial supply chain management. Laurence Neville reports.