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Moody's upgrades Norilsk Nickel
Moody's Investors Service has upgraded the corporate family ratings of Russia’s Norilsk Nickel to Baa2 from Ba1 and unsecured issuer ratings to Baa2 from Ba2, eliminating a notch and raising the company’s rating to investment grade.
Moody's last rating action on Norilsk Nickel was on 23 August 2006, when the ratings agency placed all the company’s ratings under review for possible upgrade.
The upgrade “recognizes Norilsk's intrinsic strong fundamentals and reflects Moody's view that the on-going development of Norilsk Nickel's operating and financial profile, manifested in the new mining strategy of the company announced in June 2006, as well as its continuous efforts to improve the efficiency of its operations, should allow Norilsk Nickel to maintain stable production volumes and support its competitive cost position in the production of its key metals,” Moody’s said.
Norilsk Nickel is one of the world leading producers of nickel and palladium and Russia's largest privately-owned mining company with reserves of nickel, copper, palladium and other metals.
Nirilsk’s net profit in the first half of this year stood at $2.367 billion in accordance with international accounting standards, 2.4 times more than in the same period of last year.
Sales revenues increased 28 percent on the year to $4.191 billion, and gross profit was up 50.5 percent at $2.816 billion. Operating profit climbed 64.3 percent to $2.305 billion, and pre-tax profit went up 36.9 percent to $1.851 billion.
Norilsk Nickel accounts for more than 20 percent of global production of nickel, more than 10 percent of cobalt production and 3 percent of copper production. On the domestic market, the company produces about 96 percent of nickel, 55 percent of copper and 95 percent of cobalt.
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