Investors holding Ukraine's sovereign bonds face a nervous wait to see if the International Monetary Fund will back an emergency programme that will see all bondholders paid in full or else recommend a package requiring investors to contribute by re-profiling their bonds. The latter would most obviously effect a US$1bn Eurobond issue maturing on June 4. However, the price of these notes rallied last week by two points to 95.5 as the market interpreted the worsening situation in Ukraine after Crimea voted to secede as more likely to provoke a full Western bailout. The IMF mission to Ukraine, which started at the beginning of this month, has been extended twice but is now scheduled to conclude this Tuesday. The standoff between Russia, which has backed Crimea's secession, and the interim Ukraine government and its allies has aggravated the IMF's task.
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