OREANDA-NEWS. Credit-Rating, a nationally recognized credit rating agency in Ukraine, has assigned a long-term credit rating of "uaBB" to UAH20m 5-year registered coupon bonds (A series) to be issued by Kiev-based Altera Finance CJSC, Credit-Rating's press service reports. The company's primary activity is securities and currency operations. In the course of analysis Credit-Rating considered Issuer`s financial statements for 2004-2006 and 1H2007, as well as other inside information furnished by the company.

An obligor or a debt liability with uaBB credit rating is characterized with 'lower than sufficient' creditworthiness as compared to other Ukrainian obligors or debt liabilities. This level of creditworthiness is strongly affected by adverse changes in commercial, financial and economic conditions.

Factors maintaining the credit rating:

The Issuer takes the 18th place by the volume of shares traded and the 9th place by the volume of municipal bonds traded in PFTS rating and the 4th place of a custodian in the rating of the Professional Association of Registrars and Depositories (PARD). Along with the asset management, providing legal services and registrar services of proprietary rights for securities, the Issuer is incorporated with Altera Finance investment group, which enjoys a significant experience in the Ukrainian financial market. The size of the Issuer's authorized stock of UAH70m as of July 1, 2007 exceeds 3.5x the planned bond issue size of UAH20m.

Factors affecting the credit rating:

The Issuer`s investment portfolio is poorly diversified, in fact, during the past year its equity structure has been formed with the shares of a single company; these shares with the bonds issued by another company account for 88.5 per cent of the overall Issuer's financial investments and almost all of Issuer`s asset balance. The Issuer's risks are common with those the entire group is exposed to. The Issuer is exposed to high risks associated with operations in the securities market, which has underdeveloped and changeable environment, with a significant number of securities transactions being of non-market nature.