RUSSIA: THE NEXT CHAPTER
Russia is redefining all previous notions about what emerging market borrowers can hope to achieve in the Euromarkets.
Fewer than nine months after the first Russian Eurobond, there have already been more than 10 non-sovereign deals for a combined $1.8 billion. The Russian Federation itself has three times stretched the market to the limits - and succeeded each time.
Its latest deal was the most ambitious. In late June it raised 10-year debt for the first time, doubling the size of the issue to $2 billion - making it the largest ever fixed-rate Euro/144A issue for an emerging market borrower. "This is truly a landmark transaction which has established Russia as the pre-eminent borrower in central and eastern Europe," says a spokesman for JP Morgan, joint lead manager with SBC Warburg.
The deal lifted the total raised by Russia in the international bond markets in 1997 to...
