Report: Russia’s Rostelecom asks for 5 bln rbl banking guarantees

MOSCOW, Sep 7 (PRIME) -- Russian telecom giant Rostelecom has applied for 5 billion rubles of banking guarantees to participate in large projects and tenders, ComNews reported Monday, citing analysts.

Rostelecom placed the bid on the portal of state purchases. Bids will be accepted by Thursday and results will be announced by September 18. According to the document, each guarantee is valid for no more than three years from the validation date.

Guarantees cannot expire prior to the agreement itself, whose validation starts from its signing.

“The starting amount of compensations to banks from the use of a banking guarantee under the agreement will amount to 200 million rubles. It’s 1% annually for the active period,” a spokesperson for Rostelecom told ComNews. No purposes for the guarantees were officially disclosed.

Georgy Vashchenko, director for operations on the Russian stock market at investment company Freedom Finance, said that Rostecom could use the guarantees to take part in large products. “It’s rather a large amount, and it could be split into smaller volumes and used during the whole period, providing some competition advantages over the companies for which the receipt of such an amount is problematic,” he said.

Timur Nigmatullin, a financial analyst at investment company Finam, said that considering specifics of business and position on the market Rostelecom has a bigger need in banking guarantees than the country’s three leading mobile operators – MTS, MegaFon and VimpelCom – and their units offering broadband access to the Internet.

(67.6850 rubles – U.S. $1)

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