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| Driving force: Russia is ripe for securitization, and Russian Railways’ $456 million deal may signal the beginning of the journey |
SECURITIZATION HAS BEEN a long time coming in Russia but 2006 seems to be the year when more than just a trickle of deals will finally emerge. Most of the deals in the past 12 months from Russia have involved banks securitizing their assets – so far this year Russian Standard Bank has issued the first publicly marketed securitization of Russian domestic assets with its €300 million consumer loan deal, and Alfa Bank sold the first Russian securitization of diversified payment rights from overseas customers and correspondent banks. These deals followed Home Credit and Finance Bank’s €291 million securitization of domestic receivables and Soyuz Bank’s $49 million car loan receivables deal, both in 2005. Vneshtorgbank is expected to bring a groundbreaking first mortgage-backed deal imminently.
Banks look set to continue their domination of Russian securitized debt, as their businesses are growing faster than their deposit bases and they need to be flexible to deal with this mismatch. However, although many of Russia’s natural resource producers have been benefiting from high commodity prices, and so have relatively little need to raise funds, its larger corporates will selectively use the asset class.