KIEV: Ukraine’s largest lender, Privatbank, said on Friday it had asked creditors to extend the maturities of two Eurobonds worth a total of $350 million due to an economic crisis which has piled pressure on the country’s banking sector.
On Wednesday the central bank urged businesses to negotiate maturity extensions on their foreign debt in order to curb local demand for foreign currency and ease pressure on the national hryvnia currency.
Maturity extensions will allow Privatbank “to increase its capitalisation and carry out obligations to depositors to the full,” the lender said in statement.
Privatbank, owned by powerful businessmen Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov, said it had proposed extending the maturity of its September 2015 Eurobond for three years and extending repayment of its 2016 bond until 2021.
If bondholders agree, Privatbank will increase coupon payments on the bonds and pay $20 per every $1,000 worth of bonds, the bank said, without giving further details.
Last year, a 6.8 percent contraction in the economy and 50 percent slump in the value of the hryvnia prompted the central bank to ask banks to recapitalise and take steps to halt deposit outflows.
State-owned lenders Ukreximbank and Oschadbank have also sought to reprofile their debt as part of Ukraine’s bid to restructure $23 billion of sovereign and quasi-sovereign debt.
