BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

25/03/2010

Belarus Hires Banks for Debut Eurobond Sale This Year

By Denis Maternovsky

March 25 (Bloomberg) -- Belarus hired BNP Paribas SA, Deutsche Bank AG, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and OAO Sberbank for a debut Eurobond offering this year as the country seeks to bolster its finances after export revenue tumbled.

"Today work officially began" on the debt sale, Pavel Ladik, an aide to the former Soviet republic's Finance Minister, said by phone from Minsk. The offering and its terms "will be subject to market conditions," he said.

Belarus, a country of 10 million people with an economy the size of Sudan's, is rated B1, four levels below investment grade, by Moody's Investors Service and an equivalent B+ by Standard & Poor's, the same level as Bosnia & Herzegovina and Uganda. Belarus joins its biggest trading partner, Russia, in seeking to tap international debt markets this year.

The government of Aleksandr Lukashenko, who has run Belarus since 1994, shelved plans to issue Eurobonds in November 2008, citing the global financial turmoil. The country turned to the International Monetary Fund for a $3.5 billion bailout loan instead to meet spending commitments after export revenue slumped.

--Editor: Alex Nicholson, Gavin Serkin.

Source:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-25/belarus-hires-bnp-sberbank-deutsche-rbs-for-debut-eurobond.html


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