S&P downgrades Ukraines rating following Moodys

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services downgraded the rating of Ukraine’s sovereign debt to “B” from “B+”, noting the outlook remains negative, the agency reported on Dec. 7.  The reasoning broadly matches the grounding provided earlier last week by Moody’s: risks surrounding IMF cooperation, the NBU’s goal of a stable UAH/USD rate at any cost, as well as an expected increase in the cost of servicing sovereign debt  in 2013.

Alexander Paraschiy: S&P’s revision is a broadly expected event after Moody’s downgrade of Ukrainian debt to “B3,” which increased the ratings difference between the two agencies to two notches. S&P’s next step could be a downward revision of the Eurobond rating of mining firm Ferrexpo (FXPOLN) from its current “B+”.