OREANDA-NEWS. On 16 February 2009 X5 Retail Group N.V., Russia's largest retailer in terms of sales (LSE ticker: “FIVE”), announced that VTB Group had increased its  credit lines to the Company from RUR 7 billion to RUR 9 billion, with the additional RUR 2 billion to be provided by the bank’s subsidiary VTB North-West.

As a result, the total amount of undrawn credit lines available to X5 Retail Group now exceeds RUR 13 billion.  This, in combination with the cash balance fully covers X5’s short-term liquidity needs, as the Company’s short-term debt as at 31 December 2008 totaled RUR 17 billion (USD 581 million at year-end RUR/USD rate of 29.38).  

Evgeny Kornilov, X5 Retail Group CFO, commented:

“We welcome VTB’s decision to increase its credit line to X5 Retail Group by a further RUR 2 billion. This recognizes our actions to strengthen the Company’s financial position and reflects the Russian government’s continued strong support of the retail sector of the economy.  

“Over the past few months, X5 has used its healthy cash generation to reduce leverage - the Company’s Net Debt/EBITDA ratio has decreased from 3.2x a year ago  to below 2.5x today - while increased availability of credit resources provides additional comfort with respect to short-term liquidity management.  We are also pleased to report that our short-term FX exposure has been virtually eliminated  thanks to dollar-denominated  debt repayment and USD cash accumulation.  Going forward, we expect that our successful multi-format business strategy, strong cash generating capacity, prudent approach towards capital expenditures and efficient cost controls will result in additional resources for strengthening X5’s balance sheet and deleveraging efforts.”