Credit rating (rating of credit capacity) may be assigned to companies in all sectors of economy and expresses a subjective opinion of the Expert RA rating agency about abilities of a company to fulfill its financial obligations timely and in full volume.

The methodology of the credit capacity rating is adjusted to specifics of the Russian market and does not take into account the country risk of Russia – the credit rating is assigned by the agency only on the basis of the national scale. The credit rating includes predictions of possible economic changes and assessments of mid-term development of a company.

Reliability rating of corporate bonds is assigned to a separate issue of corporate bonds and expresses an opinion of the Expert RA rating agency about abilities of an issuer to fulfill its obligations specifically for the particular issue of bonds for the period of their circulation timely and in full volume.

Credit rating and reliability rating of corporate bonds notably increase abilities of an issuer to attract external financing. A rating report, or grounding of a rating assessment, is a comprehensive study of financial, market and production risks of activities of any given company, as well as corporate governance risks.

Our rating of assessing a company’s credit capacity and its reliability is quite independent and based on our agency’s long-term experience, as a result, an investor may come up with a backed-up decision whether to start or develop partner relationships with a company, including reduction of cost of borrowed funds. Besides, often enough a rating report and a credit rating constitute a main instrument for counter-agents of Russian companies, who prefer not to divulge full information of their financial status in the process of negotiations.

The idea of developing reliability ratings came to the Expert editorial board in spring 2001. In August the expert initiative was supported by Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange, Aton, ОАО Russian Investors and Trust and Investment Bank. Together they launched a project “Development of corporate bonds’ market in Russia, initially aimed at developing in Russia an institute of national ratings of corporate bonds’ reliability. But in 2004 Expert RA announced the beginning of a program to assign credit ratings to companies and holdings.

The first reliability ratings of corporate bonds of Russian companies were assigned in June 2002, and two months before, in April, the rating methodology was approved by the Supervisory Board. The Board goal is to foster independence, credibility and objectivity of the rating assessments to be assigned to issuers of corporate bonds.

Supervisory Board: