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Russian Standard Bank has refined price guidance on its long five year subordinated bond to 10.75%-10.875% yield. Initial price thoughts were released on Wednesday morning at “high 10%” by lead managers Goldman Sachs, UBS and VTB Capital. If RSB goes ahead with the deal, it will mark the first subordinated global note from the borrower since November 2006, when the bank sold a $200m 10 year non-call five deal to yield 9.75%. The bank has senior unsecured ratings of Ba3 (Moody’s) and B+ (Standard & Poor’s, Fitch). Though Nomos Bank and Gazprombank printed successful subordinated bonds earlier this year, bankers have been wary of bringing lower rated Russian banks to the international market to price lower tier two transactions. Bank St Petersburg, rated Ba3 by Moody’s, tried marketing such a deal before the summer break but never finalised the transaction. BNP Paribas and UBS were arranging that note. But demand for the RSB deal is expected to be ample for the bank to go ahead with the issue, thanks to the pick-up offered. “Its senior debt was priced at 9.25% in July and those five year bonds are indicated at 8.4%,” said one analyst in London. “The magnitude of new issue cushion for dropping down a step in seniority is more than fair.” The July senior note, a $350m five year non-call three deal, was RSB’s first foray into the international benchmark market for six years. After some difficulties in the financial crisis of 2008-2009, RSB has been returning to strength. As of June 2012, RSB had assets of $6.79bn equivalent, which compares with $5.84bn at the end of 2011 and $4.49bn at the end of 2010. “After last month’s rally, the market is finally ready for this kind of paper,” said one syndicate official away from the note. “With a yield like this, I imagine there’ll be a decent bid from private banks and from Russian investors. And it’s a good name to try with investors — within Russia, RSB a very well regarded consumer bank.” The bank has a tier one capital ratio of 11.6%.