28% OF RUSSIAN COMPANIES ARE ON THE VERGE OF DEFAULT

The experts from the Center for Macroeconomic Research of Sber summed up the analysis of ICR, a key indicator of the debt burden. It turned out that this ratio of profit to payments on loan obligations for corporate borrowers is less than one. Given that corporate borrowers account for 28% of Russia's GDP, we can say that a quarter of the country's economy is on the verge of default.

The reason for the difficulties in paying debts for the most companies, according to experts, was the anti-epidemic restrictions introduced by the authorities, the collapse of the national currency and the fall in revenues from the sale of oil and gas. As a result, the income received by companies is not able to cover the debt obligations on loans.

Russian business, according to a study conducted by the analysts of Sber, is gradually turning into a kind of financial pyramid - to service some debts, the companies are forced to get into other, even larger debts.

In general, the ICR indicator fell from 4.5 to 2.7 during the coronavirus crisis, say the experts. The decline in prices for the products of commodity companies is one of the reasons for such a drop in profitability. At the same time, interest on loan obligations increased by about 20%. This was facilitated by the revaluation of the debts that companies received in foreign currency.

However, it was not only the representatives of the resource economy who suffered the losses. Research data show that debt increased in more than 116 non-resource sectors. Only 76 industries managed to maintain stability or even reduce their obligations.

In 29 sectors of those most affected by the crisis, profits turned out to be less than the minimum that could have allowed to pay interest on loans. At the same time, this sector of the economy forms about 7% of GDP (and this does not include small business, where the situation is much worse).

The most depressing situation was found in the hotel business, public catering and healthcare.

75-76% of organizations of these sectors are on the brink of survival. A difficult situation is developing for 40% of companies operating in the service sector and about 41% of companies that provide transportation.

Earlier, the experts from Raiffeisenbank calculated that the volume of loans of a dubious or openly hopeless nature reached 11.75 trillion rubles by the beginning of September. Considering that the bank reserves for them amount to 6.45 trillion rubles, it becomes clear that they simply cannot cover the loans. Experts call this situation a time bomb that can explode at any time.