NOMOS-BANK obtains funds for over USD 100 mln from foreign banks in 1Q 2008

NOMOS-BANK has attracted over USD 100 mln of funding under trade finance deals in the first quarter of 2008. The funds were obtained from foreign banks primarily by means of letters of credit with post-financing and payment deferral, including funds covered by export credit agencies: Euler Hermes (Germany), Finnvera (Finnland), SACE (Italy) и COFACE (France).

The volume of trade finance obtained in the first quarter of 2008 exceeds the corresponding previous year numbers by nearly one third. During the first three months of the previous year, the bank successfully re-financed the redeemed debt toward foreign banks under trade finance deals and increased the amount of attracted funding.

The international liquidity crisis has not affected our ability to borrow funds abroad for the purposes of trade finance, — said Yuri Lekarev, Vice President of NOMOS-BANK. — In contrast to the international capital markets, which have suffered more from the liquidity shortage, foreign counterparties continue to willingly extend loans for import or export financing. Currently, Russian borrowers may face problems only if they want to obtain funding for no specified purpose.

On 25 March, NOMOS-BANK commenced the process of obtaining a new, seventh syndicated loan for financing gold mining enterprises. The target amount is USD 80 mln. The Bank is presently receiving bids for the participation in that facility.

The loan is actually tied to gold export, so we have certainty that demand from foreign creditors will be high, — noted Yuri Lekarev.

The overall amount of medium-term and long-term borrowings realised by NOMOS-BANK including trade finance deals and syndicated loans, was circa USD 1 milliard in 2007. Over the recent years, the volume of foreign funding obtained by the bank has been growing by over 1.5 times annually.