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| VTB | |
| Size | $1 billion perpetual tier 1 bond issue |
| Bookrunners | Citi, UBS, VTB Capital |
| return to the Emerging Europe Deals of the Year index | |
The overriding theme in central and eastern Europe in 2012, as with other emerging regions, was the dominance of the debt capital markets. As ever-decreasing yields in the developed world prompted a wave of liquidity into emerging market bond funds, borrowers across CEE were duly lifted by the flood.
This rising-tide effect, however, made the task of picking the year’s most notable transactions more challenging. With even weaker credits attracting record levels of demand from cash-rich bond buyers, neither bumper books nor wafer-thin spreads were enough in themselves to earn any deal an accolade – this year’s winners had to show something extra in innovation, timing or execution.
In the first of these categories, no deal scored higher than VTB Bank’s capital-raising exercise in July. The first ever tier 1 and the first perpetual deal out of Russia, it was also only the second subordinated debt issue from any emerging markets borrower to include features designed to maintain its capital-compliant status when the country makes the move to a Basle III regulatory regime.
