Zee Beam News

MOSCOW, May 18 (RIA Novosti) - The EBRD -- European Bank for Reconstruction and Development -- has for a first-ever time issued ruble bonds to circulate in the Russian market, Steven Kaempfer, bank vice-president for finance, announced to the media today. The EBRD is coming as the world's first international financial institution to issue ruble bonds in Russia, he stressed. The total batch will amount to five billion rubles (R27.99/$1 is the Central Bank rate for today), with a five-year payment term. Each bond will have a variable coupon. Intended for Russian capital investors, the loan fully complies with the acting Russian legislation, Kaempfer emphasized. The variable coupon rate is tied in with the MosPrime Rate, a new monetary market indicator, as elaborated under Russia's National Currency Association aegis. Eight major Russian-based banks guarantee indicator quotation. The MosPrime Rate is established for every day to reflect the rates on which creditor banks agree to offer loans to top-notch financial institutions for a month to three, explained the EBRD chief. The annual rate for EBRD bonds first coupon has been established at 4.04 per cent to change once every three months in conformity with the acting MosPrime offer rate for the period. Russia's Federal Service on Financial Markets will receive a project summary tomorrow. As soon as necessary papers are registered, the EBRD will apply to MICEX -- Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange -- to enter the bonds on its list, and to the Central Bank of Russia to include them in the pawning list. Raiffeisenbank Austria and Citigroup lead bond issue organizers, and ten banks -- Russian-based and transnational alike -- are among the underwriters, Kaempfer went on. The EBRD is coming out in the Russian market as a major capital investor -- it has invested, for today, close on six billion euros to fund roughly two hundred projects, he added. The projects the bank was funding, or intended to fund, needed ruble financing. The EBRD has grown to realize that point ever clearer. Besides, it is within its mandate, and in conformity with resolutions of its stockholders -- Russia among them, to promote the progress of domestic capital markets. Whatever revenues the bonds bring will be used entirely within the Russian market, Kaempfer pointed out. As for prospects for more ruble bond issues, the EBRD cannot be sure for now about exact dates. Anyway, the bank is envisaging a project financing line to exceed by far the present bond issue, he said.