Hungarian Forint outperformer within CE3

Hungarian currency has been an outperformer among CE3 (Centeral European Three) peers over the past week, gaining 1.3% against the zloty in particular since early last week. While this has partly to do with higher risk premium being attached to Poland ahead of October elections, it also has to do with better FX liability management by Hungarian authorities in recent months. 

Commerzbank notes the Hungary's debt management agency AKK guidance gave yesterday on several topics: 

• 1) The government has managed to reduce the share of FX in total public debt from 37% to 32% since end-2014, by avoiding issuing Eurobonds. 
  
  
• 2) There had been concerns that US asset manager, Templeton, which owns a significant 10% of the government debt market, had been reducing Hungarian exposure; AKK chief Barcza clarified that Templeton had sold mostly its short-term holdings to the tune of c.$3bn, but not all strategic holdings.
  
  
• 3) Hungary faces chunky EUR 5.5bn FX debt maturity in 2016; AKK wants to pre-empt this by pre-paying c.EUR 1.2bn already in 2015, which will reduce rollover requirement next year.
  
  
• 4) AKK will not issue Eurobonds this year, but may look to issue again in 2016 when maturities simultaneously occur.