OREANDA-NEWS. National Rating Agency has affirmed its national scale 'AA+' credit rating on Sistema JSFC and has withdrawn the negative rating outlook assigned earlier.

The rating affirmation reflects the company's financial strength, which remained adequate in 2014, its consistently moderate debt  burden, comfortable liquidity position and diversified asset portfolio, generating  stable cash flows even in challenging macroeconomic conditions and in the absence of Bashneft, one of its key assets and profit centers, due to a good performance of other operating companies. NRA also note that Sistema's key asset after the Bashneft disposal is MTS, a company with a consistently strong credit quality and ability to pay adequate dividends to the parent.

The negative rating outlook has been withdrawn following the settlement of the Bashneft court case: all lawsuits brought against Sistema have been resolved and Sistema's ownership in Bashneft has been transferred to the state. Sistema has won a lawsuit for damages filed against Ural-Invest LLC and has reached an out of court settlement with the defendant, under which Ural-Invest will transfer all its monetary assets (RUB47 billion to it. The question of filing new claims against Sistema in the medium term remains on the agenda, but we assess this risk as low. In addition, dividend payments from MTS and developing assets will be sufficient, in our opinion, to fund the central company's business activities and debt servicing needs.