Moody’s and S&P downgrade Alfa Bank Ukraine
6 July 2009
On Friday, Moody’s Investor Service downgraded local and foreign currency debt ratings of Alfa Bank Ukraine to ‘Caa1’ from ‘B3’, the bank financial strength rating to ‘E’ from ‘E+’ and National Scale Rating (NSR) to ‘Ba3.ua’ from ‘Baa3.ua’. All long-term ratings remain on review for possible further downgrade. Moody’s downgraded the ratings following Alfa’s recent offer to exchange its outstanding Eurobonds (see the news of July 2). Standard and Poor’s lowered the bank’s long-term counterparty credit rating to ‘CC’ from ‘CCC+’. S&P also downgraded the Ukrainian national scale rating on Alfa Bank to ‘uaCC’ from ‘uaB’. At the same time, the agency affirmed the ‘C’ short-term counterparty credit rating and placed all ratings on CreditWatch with negative implications.
