Standand & Poor's: YUKOS Ratings Unchanged

The rating of YUKOS remains unchanged after the arrest of the chairman of its management. A press release to this effect was released Monday by the international rating agency Standard & Poor's.

The release emphasizes that Standard & Poor's is leaving unchanged its international and national ratings of YUKOS despite the continuing criminal and tax investigations affecting the company, its principal shareholders and employes and the arrest of the chairman of the management and principal stockholder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The agency believes that it has taken into account the risks of doing business in Russia, "where legal and political organizations are often not transparent and unpredictable." "These and other country-related risks are already part of the ratings of YUKOS and other Russian issuers of stock."

Standard & Poor's analysts believe that "at the present time the positive operational and financial indices of the company and its high liquidity protect creditors from the negative effects of these events."

It may be recalled that YUKOS is rated BB/Stable B for foreign hard currency obligations, BB+/Stable B for domestic currency obligations, and ru/AA+ on the national scale.