25 December 2020

Recent deals: Gazpromstroy, Samruk-Kazyna Construction, VSK, VIS Group»

The Russian bond market is booming on the eve of the holiday, deals are going on one after another, and we, of course, take an active part in them. Usually, we share only the most significant projects, but in fact, we can help with a small project or step into only a certain stage of the project.

The placement of corporate bonds of the subsidiary of Gazpromstroy (holding of PJSC Gazprom) — LLC GSP Finance took place yesterday. The issue was placed by closed subscription among qualified investors. In this project, we have prepared several security offers and issued an opinion on them. In addition, in this deal, our sister company LCPIS acts bondholders' representative.

On 22.12.2020, Samruk-Kazyna Construction JSC, a 100% state-owned company of the Republic of Kazakhstan created to implement programs to develop and support the development sector in Kazakhstan (issuer: Russian SPV-company SKKN Finance) raised money on the Russian bond market. We provided services for structuring the entire transaction and drafting contractual documentation for the issuer to issue a loan to Samruk-Kazyna Construction JSC. LCPIS is acting as bondholders' representative in this issue.

Two weeks ago, on 09.12.2020, the debut bond issue was placed by Vostochnaya Stevedoring Company, a subsidiary of Global Ports (* stevedore companies provide ship loading and unloading services). As part of this project, we have issued an opinion on a public irrevocable offer.

For VIS Finance (infrastructure holding VIS Group) we prepared a covenant package, which was included in the text of the decision on the issue. And here we would like to say separately that we are very pleased to see how the practice of covenants is gradually taking root in the Russian bond market. In Russia, covenants have long been used in the framework of bank financing and in the issuance of Eurobonds, but they have not been widely used in bonds. And in recent years, we have seen an increase in the number of bond issues, which are accompanied by voluminous and complex covenant packages – another step in the development of the Russian bond market, which is gradually approaching the Western standards of such financial transactions.

Michael Malinovskiy, partner, and Ilya Rynenkov, senior associate, have helped clients in all the above projects.