BTA Bank has appointed Lovells to advise the bank on asset recovery. BTA was nationalised in February and at the end of June it announced that its losses under loans issued by former bank’s managers to its affiliates, including financing foreign projects, amounted to KZT1.413bn (US$9.4mn) in 2008.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bear Mountain, a luxury hotel and golfing resort in Victoria, Canada, is looking to the sukuk market to raise up to US$380mn to re-finance a loan it took out from HSBC. It would be the first publicly-rated sukuk issued in Canada.

Omar Bongo, Gabon's longest serving president, has died of a heart attack on June 8 in a Spanish hospital at the age of 73. He had been president of the African nation since 1967. He is said to have stopped work in May, checking into a clinic in Barcelona, with reports claiming that he had cancer.
 

On June 18, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) welcomed a US$750mn sukuk issued by CBB International Sukuk Company (No.2) on behalf of the government of Bahrain. This is the first sukuk to be listed in Europe this year.    

Vnesheconombank (VEB), Russia's State Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Affaris, and the China State Development Bank (CSDB) entered into a credit agreement for an amount of US$310mn on June 14.

Lithuania has successfully tapped international capital markets with a €500mn benchmark 5-year Eurobond transaction due 2014, with an annual coupon of 9.375%.

The EMEA debt capital markets re-opened in May, with new issuance particularly strong  in the sovereign sector, as investors re-gained their appetite for emerging market issuance.