Gazprom Neft and MTS Place Corporate Floaters Worth Hundreds of Billions of Rubles
Gazprom Neft has completed the placement of three-year bonds worth 100 billion rubles with a spread of 100 bps to the key rate. MTS placed a 12-year floater for 40 billion rubles and is starting placement for another 20 billion.
[The Gist]: What Is Really Happening
The market mistakenly interprets the floater placements by Gazprom Neft and MTS as "successful capital raising under high demand." In reality, this is a forced substitution of bank lending with public debt amid the withdrawal of liquidity by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR).
Figures that change the picture: since January 2026 alone, Gazprom Neft has placed five floater issues totaling about 425 billion rubles. MTS has come out with a 12-year floater for the first time — this is nonsense for a market where even sovereign OFZ bonds beyond 10 years are not in demand.
The key signal being ignored: Gazprom Neft's spread has narrowed from 170 basis points in March to 100 basis points in May. This is not a sign of "investor love," but a consequence of the fact that large banks (Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank) have stopped issuing loans to first-tier issuers and are driving them to the public market with a single underwriter — Gazprombank.
Timeline and Context
March 2026: Gazprom Neft places a floater for 50 billion rubles with a spread of 150 basis points to the key rate.
April 2026: The next issue — 100 billion rubles, the spread remains 150 basis points.
May 5, 2026: Gazprom Neft places a floater for 87 billion rubles with a spread of 150 basis points.
May 18–22, 2026: MTS receives registration for issue series 003R-02. Gazprom Neft registers issue 005R-08R under number 4B02-08-00146-A-004R.
May 26, 2026: MTS collects bids. Oversubscription allows increasing the volume from the initial 10 billion to 40 billion rubles and reducing the spread from 200 to 150 basis points. Agencies Expert RA, NCR, and ACRA assign the issue a rating of ruAAA.
May 27, 2026: Rating agency Expert RA officially assigns a ruAAA rating to Gazprom Neft's bonds of series 005R-08R.
May 28, 2026 (yesterday): Gazprom Neft completes the placement of 100 billion rubles with a spread of 100 basis points — the lowest in the history of its floaters. MTS also places 40 billion and announces the start of placement for another 20 billion [news].
May 29, 2026 (today): The news is published in the media.
Important context that is being kept quiet: Gazprom Neft has placed almost 425 billion rubles in floaters in 2026. For comparison, in all of 2025, the company raised about 300 billion through floaters. Such acceleration is a clear sign that bank lending has slowed, and the cash operating cycle requires liquidity.
Who Wins and Who Loses
Winners:
- Gazprombank as the sole underwriter of Gazprom Neft's issues. At a time when other banks are cutting back on lending, Gazprombank earns commissions for organizing each placement and simultaneously places the securities in its portfolios.
- Large institutional investors (pension funds, insurers) that are allowed to invest only in securities with a rating of at least ruAAA. They have no choice but to buy these floaters, even if the spread narrows to 100 basis points.
- MTS, which extended its debt to 12 years — a rarity for the Russian market. The company replaces expensive short-term loans with cheaper long-term funding, reducing interest expenses.
Losers:
- Retail investors buying these floaters on the secondary market. With a spread of 100 basis points and a current key rate of 16%, the coupon is 17%. But after the expected CBR rate cut to 13% by the end of 2026, the coupon will drop to 14% — below inflation (5.33% annual, but real inflation for consumers is higher).
- Small and medium-sized banks that cannot participate in placements of this scale. They lose market share because the largest borrowers are moving to the public market.
- The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, which needs to borrow 1.5 trillion rubles in the second quarter through OFZ bonds. If Gazprom Neft and MTS absorb liquidity from the market, the Ministry of Finance will have to offer higher rates on its securities.
What the Media Are Not Saying
Non-obvious insight: Gazprom Neft's spread of 100 basis points is a copy of the rate at which the CBR lends to banks through REPO operations. This means the market is no longer assessing credit risk — it is simply mirroring the regulatory rate.
Details: The current CBR key rate is 16% (expected to decrease to 15.5–16% at the June 19 meeting, and to 13% by year-end). A spread of 100 basis points means a final yield of 17% now. But the Bank of Russia provides liquidity to banks against securities at a rate of "key rate + 0–25 basis points" (depending on collateral). That is, the largest banks can borrow from the CBR at 16–16.25% and then buy Gazprom Neft's floater at 17%, earning 75–100 basis points of spread with virtually no risk.
This is CBR — largest banks arbitrage, disguised as a market placement. The media omit that this arbitrage is possible only because the CBR continues to pump liquidity into banks through REPO operations (correspondent account balances are 5.2 trillion rubles, according to another news item from May 28).
What else is hidden: MTS placed a 12-year floater with a put option after 3 years. This is a legal structure that allows the company to effectively borrow money for 3 years (because investors will almost certainly exercise the put), but report to shareholders about "long-term money." Alexander Smirnov, Director of the Corporate Finance Department at MTS, in an official statement called this "increasing the maturity of the debt portfolio" — in reality, the term remains the same.
Also unmentioned is that Gazprom Neft increased its net debt/EBITDA from 0.78x to 0.93x in 2025. The reason is capital expenditures on projects that do not yield quick returns. This is still a comfortable level, but the trend is alarming: if EBITDA does not grow, the debt burden could exceed 1.0x in a year — a critical threshold for oil companies amid low oil prices.
Forecast: Next 30 Days and 90 Days
Next 30 days (until June 29, 2026):
- Key date: June 19 — CBR rate meeting. A cut of 50 basis points to 15.5% is expected. This will automatically reduce coupons on all floaters, including new issues by Gazprom Neft and MTS.
- Spreads on new placements may narrow further — to 80–90 basis points for ruAAA issuers. Reason: banks will continue the CBR arbitrage, and competition for "free liquidity" will intensify.
- Risk: if inflation does not slow (annual rate is currently 5.33%), the CBR may not cut the rate in June. In that case, spreads on floaters will widen back to 120–130 basis points, and the secondary market for these issues will drop by 2–3%.
Next 90 days (until August 29, 2026):
- Gazprom Neft will likely conduct another floater placement for 50–100 billion rubles to cover liquidity needs until year-end. Its total floater volume in 2026 could exceed 600 billion rubles.
- MTS will place the promised 20 billion rubles of a new issue [news]. The spread will probably be 140–150 basis points — similar to the first tranche.
- Rates on new floaters will fall following the key rate. If the CBR cuts the rate to 13% by year-end (PSB forecast), coupons on Gazprom Neft's floaters will drop to 14% — making them less attractive to retail investors accustomed to 17–20% yields.
- Main risk: if the Ministry of Finance increases its borrowing program through OFZ bonds (current Q2 plan is 1.5 trillion rubles), this will drain liquidity from the market. The Ministry of Finance is already 22% ahead of schedule, having placed 1.27 trillion out of 1.5. Additional OFZ placements could "dry up" the market, and new floater issues will go through with worse terms.
Editorial Forecast
Asset: Gazprom Neft bonds series 005R-08R (ISIN: RU000A10F8V7) — sideways with a downward trend in the next 48–72 hours. After the news of the record placement, short-term overbought conditions on the secondary market are possible, but they will quickly fade. The key yield level is 17% per annum (corresponding to the current key rate of 16% + spread of 100 basis points). Confidence level: high (75%). Main risk: if signals emerge before June 19 that the CBR will not cut the rate (e.g., accelerating inflation), the yield on floaters could rise by 20–30 basis points in one day for speculative reasons. The editorial opinion is not an investment recommendation.
— Editorial Team
