Putin adjusted the expensive mortgage

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered to deal with banks that increase interest rates on loans. The first to react to his statement was not credit, but the bond market: on Friday, the mortgage and housing lending agency decided to transfer the placement of bonds of the 21st series for 15 billion rubles. In the release, the agency referred to the current situation under which the price conditions proposed by investors do not fully meet its interests in borrowed financing. The Slon source, close to the organizers, says that in this way the agency reacted to Putin’s statements, who instructed the Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov to deal with high rates. The book of applications for bonds with depreciation repayment (parts) until 2020 was opened on February 21. At first, nothing foreshadowed such a turn of events. The range of coupon rates set at 8.75–9.25% per annum in the presence of a state guarantee on papers, Gazprombank analysts were considered attractive. Uralsib analysts even decided that these papers are an interesting alternative to buying OFZ, which are in great demand by non -residents. Nevertheless, Promsvyazbank analysts recommended investors to buy bonds only at a price at the top of the range. The fact is that the long issues of AIZHK are low, while the price of indicative transactions with them is inferior to the price at which recently the renewal of the wealthy mortgage bonds of AIZHK has passed. Thus, the market situation made it possible to close the book of applications, but was not in favor of the aggressive placement of AIZHK. “AIZHK did not score a book of applications at the desired bet, most of them were in the middle and upper boundary of the range, while the issuer focused on demand for the lower border,” a source close to the organizers of the placement told Slon. The reason for the lack of excitement was a low demand for low -fluid long papers and a sufficient amount of supply of AIZHK papers for other issues in the secondary market. In the absence of certainty in foreign markets in connection with the debt crisis in Europe, investors more willingly buy short papers. The source considered the decision to refuse to place the upper border to the decision of the AIZHK, as it is possible that the rates will soon begin to decline and expensive funding will not affect the mortgage business of AIZHK in the best way. The statement of Putin, who expressed dissatisfaction with high rates, also affected, he said. On the one hand, for mortgage borrowers this is a positive signal. Recently, mortgage rates in many banks have grown by 1-2 percentage points. The refusal of AIZHK from placement within the previously declared range means that the agency does not believe in an expensive mortgage and expects to reduce bets. Economic reasons for reducing, according to Putin, are: inflation in Russia really decreased to a record level, and the refinancing rate of the Central Bank, which he refers , is not growing. On the other hand, the Central Bank is not in vain hesitating with a decrease in the rate, and the first deputy chairman of the Bank of Russia Alexei Ulyukaev warns that a decrease in inflation in Russia should not deceive. “The situation did not become better, but in a certain sense became more complicated,” he said in January. “If we see the basic inflation and dynamics of food prices minus the price of fuel, we will see that there was practically no inflation.”