OREANDA-NEWS. March 23, 2010. The American magazine Forbes published its regular list of the wealthiest people on the planet. It ranked the major shareholder of SCM Rinat Akhmetov 148th in the world and first in Ukraine. Experts of Forbes assessed the wealth of Rinat Akhmetov to the amount of USD 5.2 billion (last year the issue assessed the wealth of SCM's shareholder to the amount of USD 1.8 billion).

Since Rinat Akhmetov has transferred management of his entire business to SCM's team, the evaluation of his wealth published by Forbes is an assessment of SCM Group business value.

We are positive about the fact of inclusion of Ukrainian business into such ratings. However, we believe that the data mentioned in them and received with help of certain methods do not give an objective assessment of the business value. Only the market can give an objective value. 

As to the Forbes rating results this year, the increase of the assessed value of SCM Group, in our view, could be explained with:

      higher transparency of the Group's business following improvements of the corporate governance structure, completed restructuring, access to financial and non-financial information about the Group's performance;

      continued investment of SCM Group in modernization of enterprises;

      M&A activities, in particular acquisition of UCC, American coal mining company.

The upward trend in Forbes assessment can be also related to the fact that in 2009 SCM Group showed stability, flexibility and readiness to face external challenges. Performance in the "crisis" year of 2009 fully meets our expectations, and even exceeds them in some dimensions. This was possible, in particular, thanks to the strength gained over the previous years - the years of the upturn. We also set our priorities clearly: we focused on maintaining sufficient liquidity of absolutely all assets within the Group, consuming resources efficiently and identifying the top priority projects.

The choice of strategy, reasonable business diversification and the ability to make right decisions quickly helped us remain effective and strong even during the most unfavourable economic times. We feel confident entering the year of 2010, which, we hope, becomes the year of sustainable growth. We plan to continue the Group's long-term development strategy: investing in all industries of our interest, expanding the geography of operations, modernizing our enterprises and implementing social projects important for the Ukrainian society.