Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR doesn’t exclude the possibility of issuing bonds in the country’s national currency – manat – in the future, SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev reported.
Abdullayev said that among the population there was an increasing interest in dollar-denominated bonds issued on September 20, totaling $100 million with a par value of $1,000 each.
He also noted that the new emission of dollar bonds could be issued in the near future, even in 2016.
Abdullayev also noted that Azerbaijan had not yet developed a tradition of bond issuance; this was the first such emission.
“We try to create an opportunity for population to make extra money”, he explained. “I believe in the success of this project”.
“We will study this issue and everything will depend on the demand”, he added.
SOCAR president added that the bond yield within the second emission would be determined at a level below 5% and didn’t specify its volume.
“The yield on the second emission will be lower than the first, since we don’t want to create problems for banks, which have interest rates on deposits in foreign currency within the range of 3% per year”, Abdullayev said.
SOCAR president noted that the funds, attracted through the placement of debut bonds on the domestic market, would be used to pay interests on previously issued Eurobonds by SOCAR.
“Thanks to these funds we finance our projects, as Eurobonds were issued just to attract funding for projects”, he added.
“As for the manat bonds, we have such plans. Our aim is to create a market, a platform for securities trading in Azerbaijan”, Abdullayev explained. “We think that next year we will work on the issuance of manat bonds linked to the dollar rate. In other words, the bonds will be purchased in manats at the exchange rate for that day, and then they can be sold in dollars or manats at the current exchange rate”.
It will allow strengthening manat and developing securities’ trading, he added. SOCAR will provide the guarantee for the sale of bonds. (Trend/Business World Magazine)