Moody’s lowered the rating to junk level Russian – RBC

Moody's lowered the rating to junk level Russian – RBC

According to the official report of Moody’s, to the rating Ba1, which is considered garbage, the rating was downgraded from Baa3.

Commenting on the agency Interfax agency’s decision, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov called the new estimate “prohibitively negative” and politicized .

January 26, another rating agency Standard & amp; Poor’s (S & amp; P) downgraded the sovereign rating of Russia’s obligations in hard currency to BB +, the first mark in the “junk» ( non-investment ) category.

During the February 20 market rumors that Moody’s may downgrade Russia in the coming days, but economists polled by RBC suggested that this would happen in the second quarter. In particular, the chief economist at Renaissance Capital in Russia and CIS Oleg Kuzmin said that the revision of Russia’s rating by Moody’s would expect in the second quarter of this year. “The agency revised the rating recently, now the objective prerequisites for the downgrade is not: the price of oil have grown, the situation in Ukraine began to stabilize. If the situation does not deteriorate, the Moody’s may leave a rating at the same level, “he said on the eve of.

« On the one hand the current market price reflects the new situation, because the market is discussing it for several months and the players had time to prepare “- says the managing director of Arbat Capital Julia Bushueva. On the other hand, she says, the downgrade of the two agencies still lead to a forced sale, if that in view of the low liquidity of the market will slump, I would use it to buy high-quality corporate bonds, for example « LUKoil » and « Severstal ».

The key consequence of the downgrade to junk by two of the three rating agencies may become the exception of Russian securities in the index Barclays Global Aggregate – one of the leading bond indices, which are guided many funds. In the composition of the index is both ruble and foreign exchange Russian government bonds , and Eurobonds Russian companies . Russia “weighs” in the index of 0.7%, which corresponds to approximately $ 140 billion, according to Reuters last month.

Under the sale can get government bonds in rubles and dollars, totaling nearly $ 6 billion to the report, JPMorgan, sostavlennogr in January. “According to our estimates, if Moody’s or Fitch downgraded the rating to sub-investment level, it could lead to the sale of foreign currency government securities for $ 4.66 billion and $ 1.1 billion in federal loan bonds “, – stated in the report of the research department of JPMorgan.