Aeroflot has no need to borrow more for now but extends loan

Aeroflot (SU, Moscow Sheremetyevo) has already created a safety cushion ahead of the typically arduous autumn season and sees no need for further borrowing in the near future, the Russian flag carrier’s chief financial officer, Andrey Chikhanchin, has told the news agency Reuters.

The company has RUB24 billion rubles (USD329 million) in undrawn state-guaranteed loans in reserve, he said, stressing that it had not experienced difficulties in financing its operations during the summer and had secured enough liquidity ahead of the autumn.

“At the moment, we have about RUB100 billion [USD1.37 billion] in debt, excluding lease payments, while the account balances are quite large. The debt is mostly secured by the account balances,” he said.

Despite denials and news reports to the contrary during the spring, Chikhanchin confirmed to the news agency that Aeroflot had placed exchange-traded bonds amounting to RUB24.65 billion (USD338 million) at a rate of 8.35% in June. It had previously targetted raising RUB15 billion (USD205 million) at 9.15%.

The chief financial officer claimed that the total demand for this corporate debt was around RUB70 billion (USD958 million), RUB46 billion (USD630 million) of which was selected and RUB24 billion (USD328 million) held in reserve. Some of the bonds on offer carried state guarantees, he added.

“We are diversifying our borrowing instruments. Government-guaranteed loans would have been cheaper, but we decided to use another instrument that was available,” he said, adding that the company was aiming for an average debt ratio of about 7%.

In related news, Aeroflot disclosed in a stock exchange filing that at a meeting of the board of directors on June 29, an extension was approved to the period for the disbursement of funds under a RUB39 billion (USD531 million) credit line from state-owned Sberbank, from June to December 31, 2021.

The state-guaranteed non-revolving credit line was concluded with Sberbank in August 2020. All other terms of the transaction remain unchanged.