Cashing up: Gazprom eyes Eurobond market
Gazprom mulls over $500m Eurobond
Gazprom become the first Russian company to return to the Eurobond market as it is considering an issue of at least $500 million, banking sources told Reuters today.
Gazprom's placement could unlock the Eurobond market for some other Russian borrowers with stable ratings, after a drought of refinancing options over the past nine months amid the global credit crunch.
Russia is looking into the possibility of external borrowing, and the government could be asking Gazprom to test the water, analysts said.
"We believe that, instead, (the finance ministry) will ask one of the big state-controlled corporates to issue bonds to test the market," Reuters quoted UBS as saying in a report today.
Gazprom, Russia's most indebted company with consolidated outstanding debt of $60 billion, last time tapped the market in July 2008 with a $500 million five-year bond priced at 7.51% yield.
A banking source told Reuters Gazprom was waiting to see the slowly reviving appetite for Russian risks bringing yields down from current levels.
"They do not want to pay more then 10%," the banker said.
Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom said today it swung to a 259.87 billion rouble ($7.76 billion) loss in the fourth quarter of last year from a 147.19 billion rouble net profit in the previous quarter.
The results were calculated under Russian accounting standards (RAS).
Analysts tend to focus on Gazprom's financial reports under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), but view the RAS report as important guidance. Gazprom will publish its 2008 IFRS results later this year.
As a result of weaker financials, Gazprom is likely to cut its dividend payout for 2008, although it will not change its dividend policy, Gazprom's chief financial officer Andrei Kruglov said today.
"Since 2008 net profit was not as much as in 2007, there will be a change in the payment, but it will only be connected to the profit level and will not be the result of a change in the dividend policy," Kruglov told Reuters.