Russia Is Facing A Wave Of Business Defaults
- 17.02.2026, 17:53
Risks are increasing.
A slowing economy, falling profits and the Central Bank's high key rate have plunged Russia's debt market into a default crisis.
In January 2026, Russian companies defaulted 51 times on debt securities, including payments, repayments, offers and covenants, reports Reuters, citing data from Expert RA. Compared to January last year, the number of such cases doubled, as did the amount of missed payments - 3.38 billion rubles versus 1.78 billion.
Only last week 10 companies defaulted: Moscow-based Mosregionlift, household chemical manufacturer Chistaya Planeta, Novosibirsk-based fuel company Naftatrans Plus, Chelyabinsk-based computer repair company S-Print, online store Nappy Club, agro-firm Plemzavod Pushkinskoe, logistics operator Monopoly, machine-building holding Veratek, landscape service Landscape Construction Hub, technical gas producer GazTransSnab and Novosibirsk LLC Kuzina.
The majority of companies in default record a lack of cash on the date of fulfillment of the obligation, caused by late receipt of payments from counterparties, the same reason was the main among default events in 2025, notes Mikhail Nikonov, director of corporate ratings at Expert RA.
There were 25 bond defaults in Russia last year - twice as many as the year before and a record number since 2022, when the outbreak of war and sanctions triggered a crisis for dozens of companies. Although it is lowering the key rate, which it had previously hiked to 20-year highs, it is not helping business: bond rates have been virtually flat for six months, Nikonov points out.
To attract investors, companies are offering to pay coupons once a month (instead of the traditional once a quarter or once a year). "When the cost of debt servicing has seriously increased along with the frequency of interest payments, and delinquencies in payments are growing among the issuers' clients, the risks of breach of coupon payment terms by issuers are seriously increasing," Nikonov warns.
In absolute figures - a few billion rubles - the scale of defaults is small, Expert RA emphasizes. Such an amount is not capable of causing a crisis in the financial system, unlike defaults on bank loans, which are estimated in trillions.
According to the Central Bank, at the beginning of the year 11% of all loans of legal entities became problematic. And if we take into account the loans that banks were forced to restructure, softening the terms for insolvent borrowers, then almost 15% of the corporate loan portfolio is in the problem zone.
Br2.7 trillion rubles of loans of oil and gas companies, the same amount of loans in the industrial sector, Br1.6 trillion of loans to metallurgists and the mining industry have fallen under restructuring. In the latter, coal miners are in distress, having accumulated more than Br300 billion of balanced losses at the end of last year.
The quality of loans will continue to deteriorate, a senior banker from one of the largest banks told Bloomberg. With the help of restructurings, companies got a respite, but it is unlikely that they will recover business, the agency's interlocutor added.