UPDATE2: Sberbank may offer 3 bln ruble more OFZ bonds for households

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MOSCOW, May 18 (PRIME) -- Russia’s biggest bank Sberbank has almost depleted its 50% share in the OFZ government bond issue for households and is ready to satisfy demand for 2.5 billion rubles more, Andrei Shemetov, director of Sberbank CIB’s global market department, told reporters Thursday.

“The entire amount of placement is far from completion yet but we are seeing a stable client demand. We are ready to fulfill the decision by the Finance Ministry and to satisfy demand of our clients for 2.5 billion rubles more of OFZ-n from the total issue,” Shemetov said.

VTB 24 bank, the retail arm of Russia’s second largest bank VTB Bank and another Finance Ministry’s agent to sell OFZ bonds for households, also plans further participation in the project and thinks it has proved successful, a spokesperson for the bank told PRIME.

VTB 24 said it has received about 3,500 OFZ bond bids worth about 4 billion rubles with an average bid exceeding 1 million rubles. The bulk of the bids were submitted in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, which exceeded the bank's expectations a lot.

“The bonds are in high demand and we, of course, plan to continue participating in the project, which is also aimed at raising people’s financial awareness,” the spokesperson said.

Managing Director of the Moscow Exchange Andrei Braginsky said earlier on Thursday that the bourse opened 7,500 accounts in the framework of placement of the debut issue of OFZ government bonds for households.

“OFZ bonds for people have been placed well. Private investors opened 7,500 accounts in the framework of the placement. These are new brokerage accounts. People get to know the market this way. The number of clients of the exchange, the households, is rising; the number of individual investment accounts has reached 220,000. All this shows that people are interested in exchange instruments,” Braginsky said.

On April 26, the Finance Ministry started selling the debut OFZ bond issue for households. It wants the yield on the bonds to be higher than yields on state bonds in circulation and yields on banking deposits. The yield will also depend on the term of ownership, as the coupon will increase closer to the maturity date.

(56.7383 rubles – U.S. $1)

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