Turkey retaining banks for Japanese bond talks

Ankara has hired three banks to arrange meetings with Japanese bond investors next week, according to Bloomberg. Daiwa Securities Capital Markets, Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities and Mizuho Securities are arranging talks for Feb. 22-23, anonymous Japanese sources told Bloomberg. Ankara plans to sell $2 billion of Samurai bonds guaranteed by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Hiroshi Watanabe, the CEO of state-run Japanese bank JBIC, told reporters last November. Samurai bonds are yen-denominated notes sold in Japan by overseas borrowers. Turkey has planned for about 12.5 billion TL in foreign borrowing this year, including payments from international lenders such as the World Bank. It sold $1 billion of 30-year bonds on Jan. 5 at an annual yield of 6.25 percent, the lowest ever for the maturity. Turkey expects an increase in its credit rating to investment grade after its general elections in June, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said in London last November.