BELGRADE (Serbia), December 21 (SeeNews) – Serbian blue-chip engineering and telecommunications firm Telefonija plans to issue a four-year corporate bond worth some 2.0 million euro ($2.9 million) in January, the issue agent said on Monday.
The money is intended to finance Telefonija’s projects in the gas sector and internet services providing, the head of investment department at the Serbian unit of Austrian Raiffeisenbank, Aleksandar Malisic, told SeeNews.
This will be the first corporate bond issue on the Serbian market. It will be denominated in euro with an annual floating coupon equal to the Euribor rate plus 7.5%, which is pretty attractive for the current state of affairs, Malisic said.
Telefonija officials were not immediately available to comment.
The company’s stock last traded on the Belgrade bourse on Friday, closing at 1,808 dinars, down 2.27% from its previous trading on December 14, when it surged 8.89%.
Telefonija’s net profit soared to 82.5 million dinars ($1.2 million/855,000 euro) last year from 51.5 million dinars in 2007.
The firm (www.telefonija.rs) has three subsidiaries – Bosnia’s Telefonija Brcko and Serbian-based telecoms provider BeotelNet ISP and Gas Tel, a company active in natural gas system installation and distribution.
Malisic said a final decision on the bond issue price is pending feedback later this week from insurance firms, voluntary pension funds, and investment funds .
“If we go for two million, we could have a 50% success threshold,” he added.
The company will seek an approval for the issue from the securities commission before the end of the year.
“We should release the issue by January 15,” Malisic said.
Asked whether other Serbian companies could follow suit in case Telefonija's bond issue is successful, Malisic replied: “I do hope others will follow, I think there is potential.”
(1 euro=96.495 dinars)