The corporate bond market in Russia: specifics of segmentation and expansion opportunities
The expected recovery of economic growth in the post-pandemic period will be constrained by limited opportunities for businesses to finance their investment activities. The article discusses the comparative advantages and disadvantages of one of the widespread forms of attracting external capital - the issue of corporate bonds. It is shown that bond financing is still inferior in volume to such forms as the issue of shares and bank loans, but has good prospects for expanding the scale. A favorable factor is the simplification and acceleration of registration procedures for the inclusion of exchange-traded bonds in the listings of stock exchanges. The article examines the instrumental and territorial segmentation of the Russian market of exchange-traded bonds based on the data of the Moscow Stock Exchange for 2019-2020. The characteristic structural features of this link of the stock market are revealed. They are a noticeable predominance of bonds of credit and microfinance organizations on it and a significant unevenness of the territorial dispersion of issuers from the sector of non-financial organizations. The conclusion is that the potential for activation of emission activity in the Russian regions should be associated with the entry into this market of small and medium-sized businesses. The main factors that make it difficult for small regional companies to access the stock market are highlighted. The measures of state financial support for the emission activity of small and medium-sized businesses are considered. The author formulated proposals to adjust the criteria and conditions for obtaining such support and to expand the set of tools that stimulate the emission activity of small and medium-sized companies.