Erste Bank Serbia sells out 70 percent of bond offering

Serbia's Erste Bank said investors snapped up 1.46 billion dinars ($16.5 million/12.8 million euro) worth of its two-year corporate bonds offered on the Belgrade stock exchange on Tuesday, SeeNews reported.

The Novi Sad-based lender offered a total of 2.1 billion dinars in corporate bonds in a public placement in a bid to expand its funding range.

The bonds have a par value of 10,000 a piece and a maturity of 731 days. The interest rate is fixed at 15% in nominal terms and 15.87% effectively. The take-up rate for Tuesday's offering was 69.8%.

The raised funds will be used for lending to retail and corporate clients, Erste Bank said in a statement.

- Our goal is to lead the way when it comes to the creation of a secondary market for debt securities in Serbia as the first step towards the revival of the local capital market - the chairman of the executive board of Erste Bank, Slavko Caric, said.

The bonds can be traded on the regulated market of the Belgrade Stock Exchange and the over-the-counter market.