S&P updates Ukraine issuer ratings following sovereign upgrade

Standard & Poor’s announced a series of ratings updates for Ukrainian issuers yesterday, following its upgrade of Ukraine’s sovereign foreign currency credit rating to ‘B-/C’ from ‘CCC+/C’ last Thursday. S&P affirmed Kyiv’s ‘CCC+’ rating (outlook revised from negative to stable) while raising the ratings of Crimea, Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk and Luhansk from ‘CCC+/uaBB’ to ‘B-/uaBBB-‘ (stable outlooks maintained). S&P also upgraded the outlooks to stable on the ratings of Alfa Bank Ukraine and Kredobank and on better economic stability prospects, and improved capitalization; it maintained the ratings on both banks at ‘CCC+/C’.