Yekaterina Tripoten, analyst of Sovlink IC

– Holding is a reliable borrower

In the autumn 2009 Atomenergoprom OJSC will place a bond loan worth over 100bln RUR, Director General of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation Sergey Kiriyenko said while speaking at the State Duma. He said that they were considering ways to use the loan for the needs of nuclear companies.

It was a reasonable decision that the loan should be borrowed by Atomenergoprom rather than smaller companies. Holding is a reliable borrower. I don’t think that there will be just one issue. So, if there are several issues, the question is if they will be placed at one and the same time or gradually during the year.

This is an unprecedented amount, the market will not digest so much at once and will not be able to offer low interest. So, I think that the buyers will be not institutional investors but state banks or big commercial banks, which will afterwards repurchase the bonds at the Central Bank.

The other state corporations are not yet going to place bonds. This market is just budding. Gazprom is just planning to enter it.

If there is money, it must be invested in development even despite the crisis. 

Note

Atomenergoprom OJSC (Atomny Energopromyshleny Kompleks) is a state holding that is supposed to comprise 89 nuclear companies and to cover the whole range of nuclear services: from uranium mining to NPP construction and electricity production. Atomenergoprom’s companies will have a total of 175,000 employees and an annual production of 200bln RUR (5.5bln EUR). Atomenergoprom is one of the biggest players on the world market: it has a 40% share in the world’s uranium enrichment services, 17% in nuclear fuel production, 8% in uranium mining, 28% in NPP construction (10 reactors). The director of Atomenergoprom is Vladimir Travin, the chairman of the board of directors – Sergey Kiriyenko.