Another Turkish bank enters Eurobond market in lira

The debut issue of Eurobonds, planned to be placed in international capital markets by Turkish bank Akbank, will amount to one billion liras, the bank told Trend on Friday.

The Eurobond yield is 7.5 per cent per annum. The maturity date of the primary Eurobond issue is set for February 5, 2018 and payment for each coupon will be made every six months.

Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Citibank and HSBC were selected as general managers of the Eurobond issue.

This is the second Turkish bank to announce its intention to issue Eurobonds in lira. Is Bankası was the first and expects a rate of return on its own Eurobonds in lira close to 4.04 per cent per annum as the bank told Trend earlier.

The circulation period of the Is Bankasi bonds is expected to be in the range of five to seven years. International banks, including Goldman Sachs International and Deutsche Bank were chosen as general managers of the Eurobond emission.

Earlier, Deputy Director General of Is Bankasi Ali Erdal Aral said that İs Bankası decided to place bonds in lira because of an increasing demand for Turkish currency on the world financial markets.

Aral also stressed that the bank will start placing the bonds in lira on the global market for the coming months.

Eurobonds are bearer securities which will be held in depositories under the trading systems. Developing countries mainly place them on the markets. The maintenance is not reserved by Eurobonds. This makes it convenient to issue them by issuers.

Turkey has recently sharply increased the volume of foreign trade transactions in lira. Turkey's export in liras has increased 10 times for the last 10 years. The country's import in liras rose by 43 times. Turkey is conducting trade transactions with 188 world countries in lira.