Monetary policy easing in Russia has not yet led to significant decline in bond market yields, partly due to defaults - ACRA
MOSCOW. July 17 (Interfax) - The cycle of key rate cuts by the Central Bank of Russia, launched in June last year, has not yet resulted in a significant decline in yields in the bond market, according to a bulletin by the ACRA ratings agency.
"Despite the ongoing monetary policy easing by the Central Bank, weighted average effective yields to maturity in the corporate bond market remained largely unchanged in the first half of the year. This is due to a reassessment of risks by market participants amid an increase in the number of defaults among corporate issuers, a slowdown in the pace of key rate cuts, as well as high yields in the government bond segment. Given the elevated risk premiums, spreads between average yields of corporate issuers with different levels of credit risk also remain substantial," the ACRA review said.
The yield index for first-tier issuers declined by only 98 basis points (bps) from 16.42 in H2 2025 to 15.44 in H1 2026; for second-tier issuers it increased by 26 bps from 21.33 to 21.59; and for third-tier issuers it declined by 24 bps from 27.65 to 27.41. The spread between yields on bonds issued by first- and second-tier issuers stood at 413 bps at the beginning of July, while the spread between second- and third-tier issuers was 737 bps.
Defaults in the Russian corporate debt market were recorded for 13 companies in H1, compared with eight in the same period of 2025, with four of them being issuers of digital financial assets (DFAs) only. The share of newly defaulted companies among all corporate bond and DFA issuers amounted to 1.4% by the end of H1. The total amount of outstanding debt securities issued by these companies stood at 42 billion rubles, with the overwhelming majority, around 37 billion rubles, attributable to a single issuer - PJSC EuroTrans, ACRA said.
The share of the total outstanding public debt of issuers that defaulted for the first time in H1 amounted to around 0.1% of the entire corporate debt market.
"Taking into account high interest rates, slowing economic growth and geopolitical uncertainty, the risks of Russian companies failing to meet their debt obligations remain elevated. The number of defaults may increase in the second half of the year, particularly in the fourth quarter, which accounts for more than one third of the annual amount of scheduled repayments. At the same time, ACRA considers it possible that the overall default rate in the corporate debt market will remain moderate by the end of 2026, with the share of defaulted companies remaining below 5% of the total number of issuers, given the relatively low level of overdue debt in corporate bank lending," it said.
At the same time, ACRA notes that the current low level of overdue debt is partly attributable to debt restructurings, the total amount of which has been growing at a faster pace over the past two years. According to Central Bank data, from January 2024 to March 2026 the share of restructured loans to legal entities, excluding SMEs, in the total corporate bank loan portfolio increased from 18% to 24%.
With the cost of borrowed capital remaining high over an extended period, refinancing risks for previously issued debt obligations remain significant for companies with high leverage and low interest coverage ratios, ACRA said.
The total size of the Russian debt market, measured by outstanding principal in ruble equivalent, stood at 69.2 trillion rubles as of July 1, up 9% since the beginning of the year.
Outstanding debt in the corporate segment grew 10%, while government debt increased 8%. The size of the corporate debt market, including DFAs, increased 9.7% to 36.6 trillion rubles.
Growth in the corporate debt market in January-June was driven primarily by issuers with the highest credit ratings (AAA on the national scale), which significantly increased the level of new placements amid declining interest rates. Financial institutions and oil and gas companies were the most active issuers, with these sectors accounting for nearly half of all new corporate issues in the first six months of the year.
Outstanding corporate obligations with floating interest rates amounted to around 11.6 trillion rubles as of July 1, representing nearly one third of the public corporate debt market.
Total new corporate bond and DFA issues reached around 5.8 trillion rubles in H1 2026, 36% higher than in the corresponding period of last year.
