Issuer: Gazprom
Amount: $2.5 billion eight-year syndicated loan
Launched: April 21
Lead manager: Dresdner Bank
Is Gazprom the most bankable company in the former Soviet Union?
So it would appear from the runaway success of the gas giant's inaugural international borrowing - a $2.5 billion syndicated loan arranged by Dresdner Bank. The debut financing has opened the international capital markets to Gazprom and redefined what Russia's best names can hope to achieve in the market. Given Gazprom's many big-ticket projects and large foreign currency earnings, bankers had long expected the company to make a move into the international loan markets for financing. But few, if any, had forecast the boldness with which it would launch its international borrowing programme.
The first many bankers knew of the financing was a phone call early in February from sole mandated arranger Dresdner Bank to set up a series of individual meetings with those banks that had been pre-selected to take part in the financing.
Before Gazprom came to the market, bank lenders had been used to making small $25 million to $50 million short-term loans to the country's top dozen or so banks.