The FINANCIAL -- Moody's Investors Service has on June 30 assigned a B1 long-term local currency debt rating to the local currency-denominated bond issue of Eurasian Bank (Kazakhstan).
The bond represents a senior unsecured claim on the bank. The outlook on local currency debt rating is negative, in line with the negative outlook on the bank's long-term bank deposit ratings.
The total volume of Eurasian Bank's senior unsecured bond issue is KZT22 billion (approximately US$149 million), of which KZT4 billion is already placed, and is listed at Kazakhstan Stock Exchange; its maturity is seven years, and the interest rate is fixed at 13% per annum. The obligations of Eurasian Bank to make payments under the senior unsecured bond issue will rank -- at all times -- at least pari-passu with the claims of all other unsecured and unsubordinated creditors of the bank, except for those claims that are preferred by any relevant law.
Moody's adds that the negative outlook on Eurasian Bank's debt and deposit ratings reflects continued pressure on the bank's credit profile from the still tough credit conditions in Kazakhstan. The rating agency notes that the bank's ratings may face downward pressure from any of the following developments: (i) a failure to maintain adequate capital ratios, as the bank's current level of loan loss provisioning may not be sufficient to absorb the emerging credit losses without depleting its capital cushion; (ii) a failure to reduce concentration in the loan book (20 largest exposures accounted for more than 400% of the bank's Tier 1 capital as at Q1 2010); or (iii) the bank's inability to improve revenue-generation capacity, which will further affect its capital (the bank has been loss-making on a pre-provision basis in 2009). The plans of the bank's shareholders to make a capital injection of US$50-100 million in mid-2011, if realised, would alleviate some of the pressure on the bank's ratings.
At the same time, if Eurasian Bank's borrower concentration is significantly reduced and its profitability on a pre-provision basis is restored, Moody's would consider changing the rating outlook to stable.
Moody's previous rating action on Eurasian Bank was on 24 February 2009, when the rating agency concluded the ratings review for possible downgrade and consequently left the bank's BFSR unchanged at E+ (mapping to a Baseline Credit Assessment of B1); confirmed the bank's local and foreign currency deposit ratings at B1; and assigned the negative outlook to the bank's deposit ratings.
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