As if China’s Offering Weren’t Enough, Russia Also Plans International Bonds

10/19/09 Stockholm, Sweden – Not to be outdone by China’s recent bond offering, Russia is now planning to raise $18 billion in its first international bond sale in about ten years.

The securities will be dollar-denominated and offered toward the beginning of 2010. Russia is planning to take advantage of its position as an emerging market, with yield spreads that have narrowed from about 750 to roughly 240 basis points over US Treasuries.

BRIC countries are not alone in newfound confidence in the capital markets. Other countries including Hungary and Lithuania now appear safer despite their relatively weaker economies.

It’s another sign of the times that countries around the globe are seizing this moment of relative financial weakness in the US to gain economic clout.

More specifics are available from the Financial Times in coverage of Russia raising $18 billion in a new bond sale.

Rocky Vega

Rocky Vega is a regular contributor to The Daily Reckoning. Previously, he was founding publisher of UrbanTurf and RFID Update, which he operated from Brazil, Chile, and Puerto Rico, and associate publisher of FierceFinance. He specialized in direct marketing at MBI, facilitated MIT Sloan School of Management programs, and has been featured on CBS. Vega graduated with honors from Harvard University, where he was on the board of Let’s Go Publications and directed business programs involving McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and Harvard Business School faculty. He is also enrolled at the Stockholm School of Economics.

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