OREANDA-NEWS. March 2, 2009. DTEK Holdings Limited (DTEK), the fuel and energy industry leader in Ukraine, announced today that Fitch Ratings, a leading global rating agency, has upgraded the company’s national long-term rating from ‘АА-’ to ‘АА+’ with a ‘Stable’ outlook.

A key driver for this revision, according to the agency, was “a relative improvement in DTEK's credit profile compared to other Ukrainian issuers”.

Fitch downgraded DTEK’s long-term foreign currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to 'B' from 'B+'. This rating is constrained by Ukraine's country ceiling of 'B'.

The company’s long-term local currency IDR was affirmed at 'B+'. Its short-term foreign currency IDR was affirmed at 'B' and short-term local currency IDR assigned at 'B'.

DTEK Chief Financial Officer Yuriy Ryzhenkov commented: “The Fitch ratings confirm that DTEK remains a company with firm fundamentals. By implementing our corporate strategy and using effective risk management, we continue to make steady progress, despite the world economic crisis.

“It is worth noting that our long-term foreign currency IDR was downgraded for purely technical reasons as our risks are constrained by Ukraine’s country ceiling. However, our national rating was upgraded to ‘АА+’ from ‘АА-’, which is just one grade below the maximum possible.”