Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank - BCR), Romania's largest bank has bought one fifth (300bn ROL) of the bonds issued by its rival, Raiffeisen Bank. The entire bond issue reached 1,380bn ROL and matures in three years.
Most of the bonds were bought by institutional investors, either Romanian or foreign. A number of 14 foreign investors, including a bank and several investment funds bought half of Raiffeisen's issue.
The bulk of the subscription requests came from investors that did not want to buy any more than 5bn ROL's worth (671), while only 32 investors expressed willingness to buy above this level.
'The reasons why we issued bonds were the need to raise cash for financing, to improve the bank's balance sheet structure and the wish to contribute to the development of the capital market," says Raiffeisen's president Steven van Groningen,
Individuals bought 390 million ROL worth in bonds on the average. The number of individual investors was of over 650 of the 700 that subscribed to the issue. The bank successfully sold bonds to individual investors through all its 41 branches, vice-president James Stewart said.
Mihai Bogza, National Bank vice-governor, said there were at least two banks on this market preparing bond issues at the moment. The only bank besides Raiffeisen to have released bonds is BRD, while Banca Comerciala Carpatica (Carpatica Commercial Bank) announced plans for a similar move some time in the next few months. "Raising cash through bonds is probably cheaper for banks even though they pay higher interests," NBR vice-governor says.
vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro
Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank - BCR), Romania's largest bank has bought one fifth (300bn ROL) of the bonds issued by its rival, Raiffeisen Bank. The entire
