Standard & Poor’s Credit Ratings Services assigned long-term and short-term international BBB-/A-3 ratings to JSC Atomenergoprom, which consolidates civil assets of nuclear industry. Alongside with this, Stable Rating Outlook and national ruAAA rating were assigned to the company as well.

According to Standard & Poor’s, factors which positively affected the ratings are particularly the large-scale financial support to industry development programs, vertically integrated business model of the company providing the full production cycle in nuclear area, and secure monopolistic position of the company in the nuclear industry of the Russian Federation (foreign currency liabilities rating: BBB/Negative/A-3; national currency liabilities rating: BBB+/Negative/A-2; national scale rating: ruAAA).

Standard & Poor’s report states that the company has highly profitable energy production compared with other analogous Russian companies, and is expecting to receive additional profits in connection with deregulation of market. Atomenergoprom also has strong positions in the global market in mining, conversion, uranium enrichment and nuclear fuel production fields compared to foreign competitors. Besides, these positions are backed by favorable forecast of global nuclear industry development.

Alongside with this according to the Rating Services, the effect of these positive trends is limited by a number of factors arising from the period of the company’s lifecycle (the company was set up two years ago and is now in process of establishing corporate structure) and from the absence of consolidated financial statements issued in conformity with IFRS. As has already been reported, JSC Atomenergoprom will file IFRS consolidated financial statements in 2010. Particularly Standard & Poor’s points out strategic nature of partnership between JSC Atomenergoprom and state banks, but does not consider this as a liquidity factor.

According to JSC Atomenergoprom’s executive director Kirill Komarov, “receiving the credit rating is a good start for active work aimed at increasing investment appeal of Russian nuclear industry. The rating enables us to ensure objective perception by Russian and foreign investors of nuclear energy complex which is especially topical taking into consideration the company’s plans to emit a major bond loan. Rating assignment is one of the steps in our work aimed at increasing efficiency and transparency of civil nuclear energy in Russia, and another incentive to further increase the level of corporate, financial and investment management as well as transparency and informational availability.”