Ucom Bonds: the First Corporate Bonds in the Armenian Telecom Field

In 2019, Ucom issued corporate bonds for the first time.

In this article we will try to understand what a bond is and what are the advantages of that as compared to the bank deposit. First of all, let’s note that those are documents resembling a receipt-agreement, available to everyone. For example, if a certain company wants to attract investments in a certain project and thereby decides to issue bonds, then when those are acquired, the buyer actually becomes a financial investor in the initial project. This procedure resembles a bank deposit operation, but the more flexible version of it. What is the advantage of bonds? – you might ask. As compared to a bank deposit, the bonds can be sold at any time, while the bank deposit presupposes a specific period during which the money can’t be withdrawn from the bank account. In the event of the sale of bonds, the previously accumulated interest is not reset. In addition, the interest rate on bonds is higher than on bank deposits. For example, in 2019, the interest rate on dollar deposits in banks was 4.5%, and on Ucom bonds – 7.5%, while deposits in drams could be invested at 9.55% versus 11% on Ucom bonds.

“In order to diversify financial flows, three years ago Ucom decided to issue corporate bonds, as a result of which, among other things, we upgraded our fixed network, and Ookla, the world leader in internet testing and analytics, awarded Ucom with “The fastest fixed network in Armenia 2021” award. We are grateful to all the people who trusted us and bought our bonds”, noted Ara Khachatryan, Director General at Ucom.

Let’s us remind, that the issue volume of bonds amounted to USD 5 million with an annual yield of 7.5% and 250 million AMD with an annual yield of 11%.