Interfax launches new version of RusBonds portal together with Moscow exchange
Interfax Group and the Moscow Exchange have launched an updated version of the RusBonds financial portal, available at rusbonds.ru, which has been developing as an instrument of support for issuers in the small and medium-sized enterprises segment since 2020 and contains maximally comprehensive information on bonds of SMEs.
The project's intention is to make debt market participants better informed about SME financial instruments and the exchange's Growth Sector project; and to help small and medium businesses to attract investment as part of the national project "Small and Medium Sized Businesses and Support of Individual Entrepreneurial Initiatives."
RusBonds publishes news, reference data on issuers, analytical market reviews, interviews, investment ideas, and investors' comments, as well as videos of relevant conferences and webinars. The portal enables users to analyze and compare financial instruments, set filters, and build investment portfolios.
The updated version provides issuers with a broad range of opportunities for disclosing information and establishing effective communication with market participants.
"Creation of a specialized portal for bonds of SME issuers will facilitate implementation of the goals of the national project 'Small and Medium Sized Businesses and Support of Individual Entrepreneurial Initiatives'. The updated RusBonds portal will broaden issuers' acquaintance with the opportunities of the Moscow Exchange's Growth Sector and state instruments of support, as well as raise investors' awareness and enable them to better assess the risks of investment in SME bonds," Vladimir Gusakov, Moscow Exchange managing director for interaction with issuers and government relations, said.
"Thanks to the combined efforts of the Moscow Exchange and Interfax, RusBonds will develop as a unified communication field for investors, issuers, placement organizers and analysts. We will help small and medium businesses to assess their own opportunities to tap the exchange-traded bond market and to make use of available and effective information disclosure and investor relations tools," Interfax's Executive Director Vladimir Gerasimov said.
Growth Sector is a special project of the Moscow Exchange created in 2017 to assist small and medium-sized businesses in attracting investments. The platform offers SMEs the opportunity to offset part of their issuing expenses and coupon payments through government subsidies. In order to be included, a company must have existed for at least three years and have revenue of at least 120 million rubles. If a company wishes to issue bonds, its maximum revenue should not exceed 10 billion rubles, and in the case of shares - 25 billion rubles.
Interfax is Russia's largest non-governmental information group, having created the advanced information and analytical systems SPARK, SCAN, RuData, Marker, and X-Compliance that help businesses manage risks and work with data efficiently. The group includes one of the most well-known and most cited Russian news agencies in the world, Interfax.
The agency is a leading provider of news and reference data for equities market participants and the main channel of information disclosure for Russian issuers, maintaining the public sites Interfax.ru and finmarket.ru. Interfax news covers politics, macroeconomics, and issuer events. The agency's correspondents prepare consensus forecasts on the biggest Russian companies and track events on the financial markets, as well as changes in the monetary and fiscal policies of Russia and the world's leading countries. Interfax additionally develops professional services for financial organizations to analyze financial risks and prepare reports on transactions with securities.