Expert RA Rating Agency to assign credit rating to OMZ

Expert RA Rating Agency has assigned A Credit Rating to OMZ OJSC (Uralmash-Izhora Group). The A level means High Level of Creditworthiness. The agency's experts refer to a high probability of support of the company by Gazprombank, OMZ's owner, as to a factor which contributed to the rating assignment. Another aspect is inclusion of OMZ into the list of Russia's strategic enterprises approved by the Governmental Commission for Increase of Russian Economics Stability. This development allows the company to count on the state support. Moreover the company's markets are traditionally stable as financial crisis did not make its negative impact on them. Pavel Mitrofanov, Head of Investment Ratings, Expert RA, says: "Given current uncertain situation in a hydrocarbon fuel market we can say that now many countries are focused on nuclear energy sector. It led to increase of demand for OMZ products and to 22% revenue growth in 2008." Among other positive factors which were taken into consideration by the agency were its insignificant debt burden, high level of the corporate governance and information transparency.