VTB may raise 100-150 bln rubles refinancing against leading company securities
DAVOS. Jan 28 (Interfax) - VTB may raise refinancing funding of 100-150 billion rubles against securities issued by leading companies, VTB President and CEO Andrei Kostin told Interfax in an interview.
"We have a decent resource of unused instruments for refinancing. We rejected unsecured borrowing from the Central Bank of Russia, but those instruments that exist in normal practice for, let's say, refinancing under securities from leading companies, we do have those," Kostin said in reply to a question regarding financial sources for VTB debt-servicing in 2010.
"I think we can raise from 150 to 200 billion rubles by way of such borrowing for refinancing against securities, and at decent rates," Kostin said.
VTB has "a pretty healthy base of corporate deposits and private deposits," Kostin said. "We will be combining these sources, plus continuing to raise external loans." The VTB group will be announcing its external borrowing program for 2010 sometime in the near future, he added.
"We want to try new markets - Japan's (Samurai bonds), Southeast Asia, Persian Gulf countries. We have long been working on sukuk [Islamic financial instruments] and will be further working toward getting into new forms of borrowing - inexpensive and, most importantly, long-term," Kostin said.