Colombia’s government and the Marxist FARC rebels on Saturday announced they agreed on a revised peace deal to end fighting, six weeks after the original was narrowly rejected in a referendum amid concerns it was too lenient on the rebels.
Multinational companies, faced with soaring inflation and supply shortages, are selling off their Venezuelan operations with heavy losses. Six firms, including General Mills and oil producer Harvest Natural Resources, have sold operations for as little as half their assessed value on the companies' books, Reuters reports, citing securities filings.
Brazil made a U-turn on selling LTN and NTN-F bonds on Wednesday amid market volatility. Instead the Treasury intends to buy NTN-F bonds expiring in 2021, 2023, 2025 and 2027.
Russia’s sovereign yuan-denominated OFZ bonds will be issued in 2016, with Sberbank expected to participate as organizer, Russia’s First Deputy Governor of the Central Bank Sergey Shvetsov has announced.
Armenia's Central Bank said on Tuesday it was cutting its refinancing rate to 6.5% from 6.75% in the hope of easing the deflationary pressure weighing on the economy. It also cut its Lombard repo rate to 8% from 8.25% and its deposit rate for commercial banks to 5% from 5.25%.
Kazakhstan's Central Bank lowered its base rate by another 50bp to 12.0% and said further cuts to the base rate are possible, promising to restrain from "further rapid cuts." The National Bank of Kazakhstan has now cut its rate by 500bp since February this year, when the rate was raised to 17% to stifle inflation.
Moody's revised its outlook on Oman's banking system to stable from negative, but expects problem loans to rise to around 3% of the total by end of 2017, up from a low 2.1% in June 2016.
Noor Bank has closed the syndication of an AED850mn (US$231.5mn) Islamic loan for UAE-based Ajman Bank, which will be used to back the Islamic lender’s future growth. The two-year facility was led by Noor Bank as the lead arranger and bookrunner, with Dubai Islamic Bank, First Gulf Bank, Sharjah Islamic Bank, The Arab Investment Co and Warba Bank as other lead arrangers.
Nigeria’s Minister of Environment Amina Mohammed at a press briefing in Morocco suggested that the African country would issue its first NGN20bn green bond by first quarter next year, in collaboration with the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
