National Bank of Uzbekistan places USD, UZS int'l bonds worth $418 mln
TASHKENT. July 9 (Interfax) - National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity of the Republic of Uzbekistan (NBU) has placed international bonds in U.S. dollars and Uzbek sum worth $418 million, the NBU said.
They included $300 million five year 7.2% USD bonds and a three-year tranche 17.95% bonds worth UZS 1.5 trillion or $118 million.
Demand for the bonds exceeded $1.3 billion, including $1.04 billion for the USD bonds and UZS 3.1 trillion for the bonds in the national currency. More than 140 international institutional investors expressed interest.
The NBU said a favorable market and elevated demand enabled it to lower the coupon rates compared with the previous placement in 2024: by 130 bps from 8.5% to 7.2% for the USD tranche and 192.5 bps from 19.875% to 17.95% for the UZS tranche.
The underwriters were JPMorgan, Citi, Societe Generale, Natixis, Standard Chartered, Mashreqbank, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Oman Investment Bank and Commerzbank. Dentons acted as legal counsel and Deloitte & Touche as external auditor.
"As a result of roadshow meetings with international investors, it was possible to achieve a considerable improvement of the placement terms: for the first time, spread against Uzbekistan's sovereign benchmark bonds was narrowed by 50 bps in USD and by 105 bps in UZS," the bank said.
The proceeds will be used to finance priority investment and infrastructure projects in fields like tourism, transport, housing construction, energy, healthcare, airport infrastructure and small and medium business support.
The NBU also said its assets were $11.2 billion, loan portfolio - $8.6 billion, equity - $1.6 billion and net profit - $80 million at end-H1 2025.
The NBU placed two bond tranches worth $411 million in total on the London Stock Exchange in June 2024.
The Uzbek government, companies and financial institutions issued international bonds worth $4.1 billion in 2024. This included debut bonds worth $1 billion by Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company (NMMC), with the issued by Uzpromstroybank, Agrobank, NBU and Ipoteka-Bank
