Moody’s Lowers Rating of 5 Russian Government-Related Issuers

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Moody's Interfax Rating Agency (MIRA), majority-owned by Moody's Investors Service (MIS), has downgraded the national scale ratings (NSRs) of 5 Russian utility and infrastructure government-related issuers (GRIs), including one of the country's oil companies, Transneft.

"Today's rating actions follow the rating actions performed by MIS on the global scale ratings (GSRs) of these companies," Moody's said in a press release issued early on Thursday.

The issuer rating of Transneft was downgraded from Aaa.ru to Aa1.ru. Other companies that have been subject to Moody's downgrade include Atomenergoprom, Inter RAO, ROSSETI and RusHydro. The rating of FGC UES was confirmed at Aa1.ru.

"The principal methodologies used in rating OAO AK Transneft and FGC UES, JSC were Regulated Electric and Gas Networks published in November 2014, Loss Given Default for Speculative-Grade Non-Financial Companies in the U.S., Canada and EMEA published in June 2009 and Government-Related Issuers published in October 2014," Moody's said.

On Wednesday, Moody's Investors Service downgraded the ratings of 14 Russian non-financial corporates and their subsidiaries from Baa3 to Ba1.

The list of affected companies included Gazprom, Rosneft, Lukoil, Novatek, Russian Railways, Norilsk Nikel, Uralkali, as well as MegaFon and MTS.

Moody's cited Russia's weakening credit profile as one of the reasons behind the downgrades.

Last Friday, Moody's lowered Russia's sovereign debt rating from Baa3 to Ba1 with a negative outlook. It then proceeded to downgrade seven Russian financial institutions on Tuesday, and also 15 regional and local governments, including Moscow, due to Russia's weakening credit profile.

Russia's Finance Ministry has stressed that the downgrades are based on an excessively pessimistic forecast and do not reflect the real market situation.