Riccardo Orcel, the head of global banking at VTB Capital, speaks to Stefanie Linhardt about cultivating the bank’s domestic Russian operation and taking an idiosyncratic approach to growing business in global markets. 

The south-eastern European states formerly associated with the Soviet Union have been slow to privatise state-owned assets when compared with their western European neighbours, but political reforms and softening attitudes mean fresh momentum is spurring a wave of long-delayed sell-offs in the region, particularly in Serbia and Slovenia.

As the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development celebrates its silver anniversary, president Suma Chakrabarti tells Stefanie Linhardt why the bank is looking south to the Mediterranean and beyond in search of new opportunities.

Bulgarian lenders bucked the trend as Tier 1 capital contracted in most of central and eastern Europe, while Czech institutions retained their status as most profitable banks in the region.

Negotiating through dangerous territory in the restructuring of Ukrainian sovereign debt, PJT Partners' EMEA restructuring team opted to utilise a value recovery instrument in a novel way, to the satisfaction of parties on either side of the deal. 

Having shed two of its assets – the exchanges of Budapest and Ljubljana – the CEE Stock Exchange Group, with owner Vienna Stock Exchange at the helm, is steering a new strategic course. Its aim, as Stefanie Linhardt reports, is to become a leading service provider for central and eastern Europe's exchanges.