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Thursday, April 02, 2009

Gazprom Sells Russia’s 1st Corporate Bond in 9 Months

April 2, 2009 (Bloomberg by Denis Maternovsky) - OAO Gazprom, Russia’s largest company, sold 400 million Swiss francs ($351 million) of bonds, the first international corporate debt issue from the country in nine months. Moscow-based Gazprom, which supplies a quarter of Europe’s gas, was seeking a minimum 200 million francs, according to a banker involved in the transaction. The two-year note sale may open the door for other Russian companies including oil pipeline operator OAO Transneft and lender VTB Group to issue bonds, said Luis Costa, an emerging-markets debt analyst at Commerzbank AG. “The very fact that the deal is being done shows the market’s ready to accept new Russian debt,” said London-based Costa. “There’s clear room for top-quality Russian credits.” Gazprom’s bond sale was the first by a Russian company to international investors since July, a month before the country fought a war against the neighboring nation of Georgia. The conflict froze bank lending and helped send Russian stocks tumbling 63 percent in the second half, the biggest six-month decline since the country’s sovereign default a decade earlier. This was the first bond issue in Swiss francs for Gazprom, which has dollar, euro, yen and ruble-denominated debt, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Today’s sale was oversubscribed and Gazprom priced the notes with a coupon of 9 percent, said the banker involved, who declined to be identified. Denis Ignatyev, a Moscow-based spokesman for Gazprom, didn’t comment on the bond sale.
Improved Sentiment: Gazprom’s debt issue reflected a recovery in investor sentiment toward Russia, which has seen the benchmark Micex Index of stocks rally 32 percent this year, the most of any equities market after China’s Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index and the Lima General Index in Peru, Bloomberg data show. Russian companies need to refinance about $100 billion amid the country’s first economic contraction in more than a decade, according to Bloomberg data. The government halted a $50 billion bailout program in February after dispensing $11 billion and said companies should instead work with domestic commercial banks to meet their international debt obligations. “Gazprom, as Russia’s flagship borrower, is testing the market to see how Russian issuers are received,” said Mikhail Galkin, a fixed-income analyst at MDM Bank in Moscow. “This is a logical move as markets have rallied and yields come down to levels where top issuers from Russia can try to do new deals.” Gazprom has $27 billion of bonds outstanding, including $1.2 billion due this year, according to Bloomberg data. The company’s natural gas production may fall by at least 10 percent this year to 492 billion cubic meters from 549.7 billion cubic meters in 2008, Interfax reported, citing unidentified company officials. The company rose 8 percent in Moscow trading today, Bloomberg data show. The company is rated A3 by Moody’s Investors Service, its seventh-highest investment-grade ranking, and two levels lower by Standard & Poor’s at BBB. Today’s bond issue, which isn’t guaranteed by Russia, was managed by BNP Paribas SA

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