According to a new report by the Expert RA rating agency, the share of bonds in the corporate debt structure has reached a record 31%. However, this macroeconomic record masks a growing strain in the real economy.
We have looked into the report's data and identified key trends that will define investment decisions and corporate governance in 2026–2027.
Key takeaways:
- Growth driven by the strong. The 22% year-over-year increase in placement volumes is primarily driven by issuers rated AAA to AA. Companies with low or no ratings are losing access to liquidity.
- Hidden leverage. Grappling with a working capital deficit, businesses are increasingly leaning towards ‘free’ commercial credit delaying payments to counterparties. By mid-2026, payables had grown by 26% (to RUB 155 trillion), growing twice as fast as loans and bonds.
- Forecast for 2027: at least a 3 % primary default rate is expected (up to 25 issuers). The risk is heavily concentrated among low-rated and unrated companies, particularly in wholesale trade, agriculture, construction, and leasing.
FBK experts on how to spot the ‘domino effect’ before a default
The chain of non-payments in the economy directly affects those further down the line: an ordinary payment delay from a counterparty turns into a cash gap, and then into a bond default. For investors and creditors, this is a clear signal: standard formal analysis is no longer sufficient.
FBK experts recommend re-evaluating issuers by paying close attention to three critical metrics that often mask underlying problems:
1. Working capital imbalance
If a company's receivables are growing exponentially faster than its revenue while operating cash flow declines, this is a classic sign of an imminent cash gap. The profit may look good on paper, but the real money is ‘stuck’ in unpaid invoices.
2. Single-buyer dependency
In vulnerable industries (wholesale trade, leasing), a payment delay from a key counterparty instantly turns into a coupon default. While a supplier might tolerate a month, missing a bond payment by even a single day already constitutes a technical default.
3. Hidden liabilities and factoring
Heavy reliance on factoring to patch cash gaps often hides the true state of affairs. Lawsuits from factors or banks appear in the commercial case database weeks before the issuer officially announces trouble (as seen in recent cases in the high-yield bond market).
‘When reviewing financial statements, it is crucial to look for signs of a deteriorating financial position. This may manifest as a sharp decline in revenue compared to previous periods, a significant—multi-fold—increase in receivables without a matching increase in revenue, or the incurrence of substantial losses in the reporting period after previously recording a profit. However, you should remember that financial statements are not the only source of information. They must be considered together with other data available to the user: company press releases, data on the industry situation as a whole, and rating agency reports,’ pointed out Alexey Terekhov, Senior Managing Partner at FBK, and Anastasiya Terekhina, Senior Partner, Financial Services Industry at FBK.
