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Weekly Lists
August 24, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 27
bne:Credit Russian unemployment
at lowest level since 1991 due to demographic dip in shock therapy years
Ukraine's agro company Mriya secures $1bn debt restructuring
Unemployment in Russia fell by 2,400 to a total of 684,700 as of August 15, its lowest level since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Minister of Labour Maxim Topilin said on August 20.
Russia’s economy has been recovering, albeit at a lacklustre
pace, but the country is currently enjoying full employment and that has started to drive up salaries. The growth of real wages
and disposable income growth remained robust in July, Rosstat reported this week, with real wages up to 8% growth y/y, increasing from 7.2% in June. Real disposable incomes also grew by 2% y/y versus 0.7% y/y in June.
Russia’s GDP expanded by 1.8% in the second quarter, a bit weaker than analysts were expecting but up from 1.3% in the first quarter and continuing in the right direction, economists said on August 12.
Ukraine's battered farming holding Mriya, which defaulted on $1.1bn debt in 2014, has secured the restructuring of its debt, which entailed the reduction of its total debt burden from $1.1bn to $309.5mn, the company said in a statement on August 21.
The company's total debt burden will include $49.3mn of restruc- tured secured debt, $208.1mn of restructured unsecured debt, $46mn of working capital, and $6.1mn of new leasing programs for the purchase of equipment.
"We have successfully completed the complicated, unprecedented and unique process of Mriya's debt restructuring that has taken us more than three years," Interfax news agency quoted Mriya's CEO Simon Cherniavsky as saying. "As a result, we have managed to re- structure 13 unsecured bank credits, seven suppliers' credits, one ECP programme and two issues of eurobonds in one single secured debt instrument."
The farmer will be serving the restructured unsecured debt accord- ing to the agreed schedule of interest and principal payments of the new senior secured notes issued in accordance with the terms of the exchange offer," the company added in the statement without specifying other details.