Agents of the Ministry of finance of Kazakhstan to place new issue of NSB

/IRBIS, Apr.10, 00/ - As an employee of the Ministry of finance informed the agency, from April 14 through 24 the next issue of NSB - national savings bonds, intended for private persons, is to be offered. It is the twelfth issue of the bonds that received national identification number KZ4CL2704A12. Issue date - Apr.27, 00, maturity date - Apr.27, 00. Circulation term - 364 days. Issue volume is set at KZT170 mln. The bonds have KZT1,000 face value, issued in non-documentary form and have floating coupon rate to be paid quarterly. Previously, return of each coupon was determined by corresponding auction of MEKKAM-3. But after the introduction of floating exchange rate on the territory of Kazakhstan, return determination system of the NSB was changed and the rate "was tied" by the issuer to MEIKAM-3 - SS, denominated in tenge, and indexed by devaluation. As a result, the owner of the bonds was able to receive quarterly additional payment for the inflation. After the normalization of the situation on the market in this year, the yields of the last coupons of NSB, that were in circulation, were tied to auction rate of MEKKAM-3. In particular, as the source at the Ministry of finance said, the yield of the first coupon of the new issue is more likely to be determined by the results of MEKKAM-3 offering, held on April 10 (issue 262, KZ43L1307A05, weighted average rate 15.07% APR). However, an employee noted that there was enough time till the issue of NSB, and the issuer may conduct another MEKKAM-3 offering. In this case, the rate will change. This time two financial agents of the issuer will work as underwriters of NSB- 12/00: OJSC "Halyk Bank of Kazakhstan" (it has an obligation to place KZT100 mln worth of bonds), traditionally specializing in offering these bonds among private persons, and OJSC "KAZKOMMERTSBANK" (KZT70 mln). Following entities took part in the placement of previous issues: OJSC "Bank TuranAlem" (from the third through the eighth issues) and OJSC "Bank CenterCredit" (from the second through the eleventh issues). Now they do not take part in underwriting. We remind that financial agents of the issuer work as strict underwriters under this issue, who are obliged to buy their portion of the issue if they are unsuccessful in placing the bonds among private persons and legal entities. Presently, there are no NSB in circulation. The last issue - NSB-11/99 (KZ4Cl2303A09) was repaid for KZT170 mln on March 23, 2000. The last coupon on these papers was at 15.63% APR. From September 26, 1996 there were 10 NSB issues (the ninth issue was not held) successfully placed for a total of KZT3,440.0 mln.