By Ivan Anderzhanov

Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse has hired five bankers to staff its newly reopened office in Poland’s capital Warsaw.

The team will be led by Tomasz Bardzilowski, who joins as a managing director and head of the Polish equities business from UniCredit in Poland, where he was most recently deputy chief executive and head of central and eastern European equities. He had previously worked in Credit Suisse’s Warsaw office in equity research until 2003.

He is joined by Jarek Tomczynski, who was previously deputy head of global equity sales at UniCredit CAIB Securities in London. Other recruits include Grzegorz Kolodziejczyk as a director in sales trading and execution, from BZ WBK and Marta Jezewska who joins as a vice-president in equity research from BRE Bank Securities.

Jan Koch arrives in August as a director in sales trading and execution from ING in Poland. Krzysztof Kaczmarczyk also comes on board as a vice-president in equity research from TPSA Group where he was head of corporate strategy and business development.

Guy Rigden and Nichola Dobinson, co-heads of EEMEA Equities for Credit Suisse in London, said in a statement: “Poland is a key part of our emerging markets equities business in Europe. We are pleased to attract someone of Tomasz’ calibre to our platform and are confident that he will deliver outstanding service to our clients in Poland.”

By Ivan Anderzhanov

US bank Citigroup has established a Polish investment banking team following moves by Goldman  Sachs and Credit Suisse last month.

Citigroup hopes to benefit from a wave of state-sponsored privatisations and the strength of Poland’s economy, one of the few large countries to avoid recession last year.  The banking group has long had a presence in Russia in investment banking and retail.

A Reuters report today said the team adds to Citigroup’s existing Polish brokerage DMBH, one of the country’s largest, and to its corporate bank, Bank Handlowy.

By Ivan Anderzhanov in Moscow

The business climate in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) picked up for the first time since the beginning of 2008, according to the latest Thomson Reuters & OeKB CEE Business Climate Index.  The report also indicated that Russia is the top-rated country as far as business expectations are concerned.

The index polling 400 international companies showed improved morale in every country of the region, although it remained negative on balance.

Overall, the results indicate there may be signs of a turnaround in CEE. Investors’ economic expectations are cautiously optimistic for all countries and practically all sectors surveyed. The same applies to business expectations. For the first time since the surveys began in January 2007, investors’ business prospects in CEE were rated higher than the current business situation.

Poland has the best business climate, according to survey respondents, followed by the Czech Republic. On the other hand, Hungary and Ukraine have the worst. Respondents consider the current business situation of their businesses in these two countries to be particularly gloomy: a negative performance has been reported for 46% of their operations in Hungary and 60% in Ukraine. Respondents have significantly improved their business expectations for Russia, which was badly hit by the banking crisis.

The negative value for this indicator developed positively from April to July, with improved business results expected for 27% of business operations in this country over the next six months.

As a result, Russia is the top-rated country as far as business expectations are concerned. Russia is also the only CEE country where the level of investment could increase slightly over the upcoming twelve months: marginally more locations will be expanded (18%) than downsized (17%).

A sector analysis shows that banking is the only sector planning more expansion investment than disinvestment over the next twelve months: 14% of existing bank operations in CEE are to be increased, while 12% will be reduced or closed.

By Jason Corcoran in Moscow

Russia’s Renaissance Capital has been appointed as lead manager and bookrunner for a 20bn rouble bond ($612m) by conglomerate Sistema which caps a string of deals worth over $2bn during the past month.

The Sistema rouble bond is the biggest of the year and beats the recent 15 billion ruble ($485m) issue by Russia’s biggest lender Gazprom.

The five-year bond, which will be issued via a Dutch auction on Tuesday, will be used to refinance foreign debt owed by Sistema.

The other deals won by Renaissance mark a new entry into new markets in Poland, Zambia, Sierra Leone, as well as the convertible bonds sector.
Renaissance was a co-lead manager on a follow-on $200m public offering by Polish vodka producer CEDC on July 20. The deal was four times over-subscribed and pricing was close to the market.

On July 29, Rencap priced a combined $300m equity and convertible bond issue for Zhaikmunai, a Kazakh oil and gas company. It was the first convertible bond structured and priced by Renaissance and the first convertible offering structured and led by a Russian bank.

Renaissance acted as sole bookrunner on a follow-on offering for AIM-listed African Minerals that raised $105.5m. The placing raised growth capital to finance the company’s drilling campaign at an iron ore project in Sierra Leone.

The transaction is the only second equity offering to have priced at a premium in EMEA this year.

Ongoing deals include a $49m rights issue by Zambia Sugar which would become the bank’s third African capital markets transaction this year.

The deals represent a vindication of the appointment of Yury Gruzglin who was hired from Deutsche Bank last October to run the debt product group. He replaced Brian Lazell who retired from banking.

Renaissance, which was forced to pare back its staff by 50% following the banking crisis, has recently started hiring again and has raised salaries to pre-crisis levels.