Ukraine’s Finance Ministry said yesterday that it sold another UAH 3 bln (USD 520 mln) via local bond auctions yesterday. The bonds had a maturity date of February 22, 2012 and a coupon of 15.6%. The Finance Ministry placed UAH 3 bln in local bonds in actions on November 6. Oleksandr Klymchuk: After the first sale last week, we suggested that the real buyer of the issue was state-owned Oshchadbank, with the purpose of quickly reselling them to the National Bank of Ukraine, as the NBU is forbidden to participate in primary government auctions by law. We believed that this mechanism would be used to transfer funds from NBU reserves to the government, in order to accumulate money into the newly created stabilization fund. NBU data released since that first auction confirm our presumption, as the UAH 3 bln showed up on the NBU’s accounts as government bond holdings.