‘Dead’ Russian Bond Market’s 80% Yields Squeeze Firms

[Joanne98]

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Russian companies, the biggest emerging-market borrowers during the last three years, are shut out of the international bond market after yields jumped sixfold since August amid plunging energy prices and a weakening ruble.

No Russian company has raised money through foreign bond sales since August, compared with $80 billion raised by more than 200 companies in Latin America and Asia outside of Japan, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Yields on bonds due next year from Moscow-based Transcapitalbank and JSC AIKB Tatfondbank in the Russian republic of Tatarstan are trading at yields above 80 percent, up from 12 percent in August.

“The primary market is dead,” said Stanislav Ponomarenko, a fixed-income analyst at ING Groep NV in Moscow. “I wouldn’t be too surprised if there are no bond deals done by Russian corporates for most of 2009, if not the entire year.”

The credit squeeze will force companies to rely on government bailouts to refinance their debt or face default, according to MDM Bank, VTB Group and Commerzbank AG. International banks proposed talks with Russian companies that owe $400 billion in the next four years, the Russian Association of Regional Banks said yesterday.

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