OREANDA-NEWS. National Rating Agency has lowered its credit rating on Whale Finance Ltd’s series 01 bonds (Reg. No. 4-01-36435-R, ISIN: RU000A0JUHV4) to ‘A-/Stable’ and took the rating off its Watchlist. Whale Finance Ltd’s series 01 bond issue was first assigned NRA's national scale ‘AA-’credit rating on Mar. 31, 2014. The latest rating update (Watchlist placement with negative implications) was on Feb. 20, 2016.

The rating downgrade was driven by NRA's decision to stop factoring in the external support from one of the issuer's strategic partners, despite the existence of implicit guarantees from the latter. NRA views external support as a key rating strength mitigating potential credit risks involved in the bond issue. From this moment on, NRA will only take into account the support coming from VESPER REAL ESTATE (CYPRUS) LIMITED, the company, which has provided a surety plus an irrevocable public call option for itself to buy back 50% of Whale Finance Ltd’s series 01 bond issue at the offering price, if the issuer fails or refuses to perform its obligation to pay an interest (coupon) on the bonds to bondholders or to buy back or redeem the bonds. The call option is RUB 4 bn worth and will be in force until the bond maturity date.

Whale Finance Limited Liability Company was registered in Moscow in 2009. The company is actually a SPV (special purpose vehicle), issuing bonds to finance the projects of VESPER Group and providing loans to partner companies. Whale Finance’s RUR8 bn series 01 bonds were offered on the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICE) in March 2014. The bonds pay a fixed 8.75% annual rate coupon every 182 days. On Apr. 25, 2014, they were included in MICE’s “A” (Tier-1) quotation list.

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