OREANDA-NEWS. July 26, 2011. Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has upgraded TransCreditBank’s long- and short-term counterparty credit ratings by one notch to ‘BB+/B’ and Russia national scale rating to 'ruAA+'. The outlook is stable.

The rating upgrade reflects the agency’s view of improvements in TransCreditBank’s stand-alone credit profile following the change in ownership. The stable outlook reflects the agency’s expectation that TransCreditBank’s asset quality and profitability indicators will remain better than the system average, while the new controlling shareholder Bank VTB will support the Bank’s capitalization.

“Our rating action assumes a smooth transfer of ownership to VTB with no negative impact on TransCreditBank’s customer franchise and operations. VTB’s status as the controlling shareholder and strategic investor is likely in our view to lead to improvements in TransCreditBank’s capitalization, cost of funds, and sales effectiveness,” says Victor Nikolskiy, analyst at S&P.

The rating action followed the announcement of the signing of shareholder agreement and sale and purchase agreement by JSC “Russian Railways” and JSC VTB Bank on July 15, 2011. As a result of the deal, VTB Bank has consolidated 72.88% TransCreditBank’s shares, and Russian Railways keeps 25%+1 share. As per the agreements, Bank VTB may purchase the remaining stake from Russian Railways from July 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013.