On July 1, the republic of Macedonia has issued a fixed-rate €175mn Eurobond with a 9.875% coupon which matures in 2013. The money is said to finance the country’s budget gap and prop up the currency.

A joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Exxon Mobil plans to sell up to US$2.3bn in bonds to finance the expansion of LNG facilities, according to reports.

PepsiCo, one of the world's largest food and beverage companies, has announced plans to invest US$1bn in Russia over three years, together with its partner The Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG). The investment will bring the cumulative investment in Russia by PepsiCo and PBG to over US$4bn.

The R3bn series 6 bond placement by the Russian bank Zenit took place on July 7 and was held at MICEX stock exchange in the form of open subscription at the auction on setting the first coupon rate.

European financing for a hydroelectric plant in Turkey was suspended on July 7 after Turkey failed to offer environmental protections in the area around the Tigris River where antiques from the Middle Ages will be flooded by the dam.

Actis, an emerging markets private equity investor, has executed an agreement to invest US$244mn to acquire shares in Commercial International Bank, a leading bank in Egypt.

Poland is selling US$2bn of bonds in its first dollar bond in almost four years with Barclays Capital, Citigroup and HSBC as lead arrangers. On July 7, investors placed more orders than the government initially offered, prompting Poland to increase its sale by 25% from US$1.5bn.

Gunvor International, an independent oil trader headquartered in Amsterdam, which mainly exports oil from Russia, has signed a revolving one-year credit facility of US$600mn, successfully refinancing and extending last year’s debut of US$370mn.

Evgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog, explains why the non-perfoming loan 'crisis' in Russia may not be such a crisis after all, and uses a new poll on drug addiction in Russia to support his intriguing argument.

Qatar National Bank-Syria, a private Syrian-Qatari bank, has announced the launch of 34% of its total equity in an initial public offering (IPO) which will raise US$37.15mn.

RusHydro, the world’s largest publicly traded hydro generational company, has listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), making it the first GDR listing on the LSE since February. Bank of New York Mellon is the depository bank.