OREANDA-NEWS. November 02, 2010. The EBRD has taken up 24 percent of a seven-year 15-billion rouble bond issued by Russia’s Federal Grid Company, the first Russian power company to achieve such a long maturity on a domestic bond and the only corporate outside the banking sector to do so, reported the press-centre of EBRD.

The EBRD investment in this bond amounts to 3.66 billion roubles. The coupon on the bond was set at 7.99 percent.

The Bank sees this facility as supporting the development of the rouble debt capital market through the issuance of a non-callable long-term fixed interest rate corporate bond. Its unique maturity broadens and strengthens a local market in which only a handful of long-term corporate rouble bonds exist at present.

The Russian domestic bond market has the potential to fulfil this much needed capital-raising role, an essential development if power sector companies are to obtain long-term funding for their major investment programmes in an efficient and cost-effective way.

The success of this placement is expected to encourage other borrowers to replicate the Federal Grid’s example. This could help build up a critical mass of bond issues, provide benchmark pricing for long-term debt instruments and encourage the market to offer a wider variety of maturities, thus increasing its attractiveness for both investors and issuers.

In addition to the increased liquidity and price discovery this would bring to the market in longer term bonds, the EBRD views its participation in such issues as helping to create a non-sovereign credit yield curve. This may act as a further incentive for local and international investors, particularly institutional ones, to participate in the market.

Longer-term bonds will encourage longer term investment by institutional investors, such as pension funds, insurance companies and asset management companies. Currently, local banks, which have a shorter investment horizon, account for over 70 percent of the demand for rouble bonds.

At present, the rouble debt capital market remains essentially a short-term market with loan and bond maturities for corporate issuers not exceeding 3-5 years. Although longer nominal maturities do exist, most bonds on Russia’s domestic market include short-term put options and such options in practice considerably shorten their real tenor.

In an earlier demonstration of support for Russia’s power sector through the capital markets, the  EBRD on October 22 bought 4.5 billion roubles of a 20 billion rouble Eurobond issued by RusHydro, the first such instrument launched by a Russian power sector company.

The Federal Grid Company is a publicly-listed, majority state-owned monopoly operating high voltage transmission lines across Russia. The EBRD investment in the company’s bond is intended to provide funding for the rehabilitation of its Pakhra sub-station in the Moscow region, both to increase its transmission capacity and optimise overall system performance.