Moody's lifts Metinvest, rates bonds B3

Moody's Investors Service said it upgraded Metinvest BV's national scale rating to A1.ua from A2.ua and assigned a provisional B3 (LGD5, 76%) rating to its proposed senior unsecured bond issue. The B2 corporate family rating is unchanged.

The outlook was changed to positive from stable.

The agency said the rating action was prompted by Metinvest's relatively resilient annual results in 2009, despite of one of the worst years for the steel industry globally. Metinvest benefited in 2009 from its low-cost production facility in the Ukraine and the devaluation of the local currency, Moody's said. In addition, the positive outlook benefits from the relatively healthy capital structure with a debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 2.6 times.

The agency cautioned that Metinvest's debt maturity schedule remains on a very short-term basis and that around $616 million of the company's term debt needs to be repaid or refinanced in 2010 and about $500 million in 2011. The proposed bond issuance would significantly mitigate this relatively weak maturity profile, Moody's said.

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