Fixed Income
Ukrainian sovereigns ended lower last week, as yields had little room for appreciation amid uncertainty regarding sources for the country’s debt redemptions to the IMF this year. Ukraine has to repay a total of USD 5.8bn to the IMF in 2013 (the first tranche of USD 405mn has already been transferred). An IMF mission is currently in Kyiv, and Deputy Prime Minister Sergiy Arbuzov has suggested that the IMF will decide on whether to issue a new standby loan for Ukraine by early March. However, expectations for a positive decision are rather low given the ongoing policy stalemate. The previous USD 15bn stand-by loan program, granted in June 2010, was frozen two years ago due to Kyiv’s failure to meet the IMF’s requirements. Ukraine-22s slid 0.7%, closing at 101.7/102.2 (7.6%/7.5%), and Ukraine-15s edged down 0.2% to 100.4/101.2 (6.7%/6.4%). Corporate debt papers were mixed, with MHP-15s rising 0.9% to 106.2/107.0 (7.2%/6.8%) while Ferrexpo-16s decreased 0.9% to end at 100.4/100.8 (7.8%/7.
