OREANDA-NEWS. On 13 April 2009 was announced, that Moody's Investors Service assigned the following global scale ratings: B3 long-term, E+ bank financial strength rating, and long-term national scale rating of Baa2.ru.

Moody’s outlines good risk management processes and reasonably sound liquidity position. SOTSGORBANK has a dedicated and experienced management that also controls the bank. The bank's corporate governance system and overall transparency is also advanced compared to many peers. Industry concentration on construction and real estate sector has amounted to 21% in 2008 according to IAS.

According to Moody's, ratings may benefit from stabilisation in its asset quality provided that the bank reports acceptable capitalisation and liquidity.

“The decision to issue the second global rating was due to the desire to be more transparent and opened which today is becoming more crucial to enhance the confidence to the banking market and SOTSGORBANK is a part of it.” – comments Alexander Golev, International business and financial institutions department director. “The availability of two global ratings will make possible for investors and partners to evaluate bank’s activity in a broader extend and to meet investment decisions. Management of the bank has a solid business experience which has also resulted in the successful management in current market conditions and during the last 17 years of the Bank’s history. The 2008 IAS results showed that the management has increased assets by 17% and the 3 ratings upgrades took place: Standard & Poor’s to B-, RusRating to BB- and Corporate Governance to 7+ level which only Russian corporates “blue chips” traded in Moscow, New York and London stock exchange have.”

According to Alexander Golev, the global credit rating issue in the current difficult market conditions shows the stable positions of the Bank: "SOTSGORBANK fulfills all its obligations in full and on time: in March 2009 the next Tranche on the loan provided by WorldBusinessCapital USA in December 2007 of USD  10 mln was executed and also in March 2009 the second Tranche on Debut 1-year RUB 500 mln bonds issue took place. The rating B3 / Stable outlook also shows the progress in conservative management of the loan portfolio quality and decrease by 9% of construction and real estate sector exposure in 2008”.