Translated material
Investor bonus
VTB increases the volume of loans on the external and domestic markets
Despite the unstable situation in the borrowing markets, VTB doubled the volume of its program for issuing credit notes to $20 billion. As part of this program, he yesterday began placing two tranches of Eurobonds. In addition, the VTB Supervisory Board approved the attraction of three semi-annual loans from the Central Bank totaling 17.3 billion rubles. Analysts have a positive assessment of the bank's increased activity in the foreign loan market: in their opinion, this indicates a gradual restoration of investor demand for Russian financial securities.VTB is currently placing a five-year tranche of securities at a rate of 200 basis points to average market swaps. For the second two-year tranche, the bank borrows at 170 basis points to the three-month LIBOR rate.
According to Renaissance Capital analyst Nikolai Podguzov, with the onset of the liquidity crisis, domestic issuers are offering investors an additional premium compared to the rates of their securities already traded on the market. This is what Gazprom and TNK-BP did. VTB was no exception - the yield on placed five-year securities is 6.64% per annum, the yield on the bank's trading bonds maturing in 2011 is 6.3% per annum. “It turns out that the premium to investors is just over 30 basis points,” says Mr. Podguzov. - This is a significant difference. Investors will receive the same premium for two-year securities.” Nevertheless, Mr. Podguzov assesses the fact of the placement positively: “It’s good that VTB is borrowing money, which means that the securities of Russian banks are in demand by investors.”
In addition to borrowing on the foreign market, VTB does not exclude the possibility of obtaining loans in Russia, namely from the Central Bank. “Approval of loans does not mean that funds will be raised, and there is no obligation to select the full amount of these loans. As of October 22, the entire volume of these loans has not been taken out,” VTB said in its materials.
However, VTB has already received a loan from the regulator - in the fall the Central Bank lent it 6.9 billion rubles. at 7.5% per annum. Deputy Chairman of the Board of VTB Vasily Titov told Vremya Novostey at the time: “We are considering the possibilities of borrowing on the domestic and foreign markets. The Central Bank loan is a very profitable loan in the current market situation.” Investment analysts agreed with this opinion.
VTB considers the main thing to be an operational and not a legal merger with VTB North-West , according to its investment memorandum. “The group will consider the possibility of merging with VTB North-West Bank later; now a legal merger is not a priority for VTB. However, the group believes that this will not significantly affect its overall strategy for the operational merger of the two businesses,” the document notes. As is known, on September 3, the VTB Supervisory Board canceled the extraordinary meeting of shareholders scheduled for September 27, at which it was planned to approve the merger two banks. However, at the end of September, the head of the bank, Andrei Kostin, said that VTB still plans to offer the subsidiary’s minority shareholders an exchange of shares according to parameters “close to those outlined earlier.” On October 17, VTB Deputy Chairman of the Board Vasily Titov told INTERFAX-AFI that the offer was being made to minority shareholders. shareholders of VTB North-West Bank for the redemption of their shares will be sent within two weeks.