Friday, January 31 2014

An issue of Armenian eurobonds has been listed at NASDAQ OMX Armenia. 

The listing ceremony took place on Friday and was attended by the Finance Minister and a number of CB officials.
CEO of NASDAQ OMX Armenia Konstanin Saroyan said that eurobonds have now become an alternative investment instrument on Armenia's capital market. 
"This is the first time for NASDAQ OMX Armenia when bonds listed by international clearing systems have also entered an organized market in Armenia," Saroyan said.

Finance Ministry official Arshaluys Margaryan said that Armenian eurobonds are in high demand on the capital market. "Otherwise we would not be hear today," he said. 

Margaryan believes that eurobonds' circulation in Armenia will pave the way for much more preferential emissions. "In any country with a small financial market, there are lots of savings. Our task is to attract them to both the banking sector and the bond market," Margaryan said.
Finance Minister David Sargsyan refused to make any comments.

Meanwhile, independent experts do not expect the demand for the bonds to be higher than 10% of the issue. Still they may become quite a good instrument for REPO deals.

The bonds were issued in Sept 2013. The volume of the issue is $700mln, the yield of the bonds is 6.25%, the maturity is 7 years. Since Sept the yield has dropped to 5.8%.  Many experts believe that eurobonds may attract foreign investors to treasury papers and corporate bonds in Armenia and may stimulate big local companies to issue own bonds.