Forint hits ten months record low
January 25th, 2014A business weekly thinks that aside from the latest interest rate cut by the Hungarian National Bank, the Forint has lost ground over the past weeks because investors have grown increasingly cautious about emerging markets.Világgazdaság notes that the exchange rates of the Hungarian national currency have reached a ten month low, after declining steadily over the past week. The Hungarian National Bank (MNB) has followed a policy of successive interest rate cuts for the past eighteen months, Viággazdaság remarks, and the latest 15 base point cut on Tuesday was somewhat higher than expected. That makes the Forint less and less attractive, especially as further cuts are envisaged. That in itself would not have triggered an approximately 2 per cent depreciation of the national currency over four days, but it coincided with several unfavourable international developments, including the slowdown of Chinese growth and the Turkish crisis, which have made investors more diffident, Világgazdaság explains.
Világgazdaság is one of the three market leaders sold , along with Népszabadság and Nemzeti Sport, by Swiss based Ringier to Vienna Capital Partners on Wednesday, after an attempted merger between German owned Springer Ltd and Ringier was vetoed by the authorities on anti-trust grounds. Now three prestigious outlets have been sold to VCP and the two companies will re-submit their merger to the authorities for authorization. VCP is not unknown in Hungary – it used to hold stakes in chemical companies and is presently co-owner of FHB, a bank specialised in mortgage deals. In Serbia and Croatia VCP owns several media outlets with Ringier as its partner.