MOSCOW. July 15 (Interfax-AVN) - The MIG aircraft corporation has placed its third paper loan, Sergei Sadomtsev, head of the client department in the Russkiye Fondy investment group, said on Tuesday.
"The third paper loan of the MIG aircraft corporation totaling RUB300m (USD9.83m) and pay back deadline of December 23, 2003 has been placed on the market successfully under an annual interest rate of 17 percent," Sadomtsev told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"The paper loan program allows the corporation to finance in full current production needs and implement its investment programs. At the same time, the paper loan, just like the previous two, has a public nature and is aimed at increasing the liquidity of the company's loan instruments that has already been created by our experts," Sadomtsev said.
According to him, the current issue is a part of the first stage of the long-term program that aims at bringing the company on the market of loan instruments with fixed profitability. The first stage will be rounded up with floating a bond issue of RUB1bn (USD32.76m) in the third quarter of 2003.
Russkiye Fondy was an organizer of the loan together with Rosbank and the LAND investment corporation. The first two loans totaling RUB300m each were floated in early March and mid-April.
MIG is Russia's major aircraft producer. It brings together 14 enterprises of various nature employing about 60,000 people. The Mikoyan design bureau is the core of the corporation. The bureau has designed about 200 warplanes, 62 of which were mass- produced. MIG has manufactured over 60,000 planes, about 11,000 of which have been exported to over 40 nations.
The corporation's stock of orders has grown nearly 11 times in the past few years. Its monthly turnover amounts to about RUB500m (USD16.38m).
MIG's warplane production and upgrade program provides for signing contracts with a total value of USD4.5bn. The corporation's stock of orders for aircraft production and technical servicing for 2003 amounts to USD350m.
MIG is currently producing several varieties of the MIG-29 Flanker fighter, including the MIG-29SMT, as well as MIG-AT trainer, KA-50 Hokum and KA-52 (Russian codename Alligator) helicopters. It also upgrades and services the aircraft it has produced earlier.
Alongside with making military aircraft, MIG is implementing two civilian aircraft projects. The first project provides for developing the TU-334 short-range passenger plane and the second for developing the MIG-110 multipurpose plane. The potential demand for the TU-334 among Russian and Ukrainian airlines is expected to reach 150 to 215 items in the next 13 years, and the global demand for planes similar to the MIG-110 is estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 in the next 15 years.