Turkey-based credit rating agency JCR Eurasia Rating has announced that it has upgraded the long-term national credit rating of Turkish integrated long steel producer Kardemir to ‘A+’ from ‘A’ with a stable outlook.
The rating agency stated that the rating upgrade of Kardemir reflects the high sales revenue growth achieved in 2017 through adding of high-value-added products to its portfolio with increased efficiency-oriented investments that began in 2014. In addition, improved profitability ratios through improvement in operations as well as the result of product sales price, decrease in the level of the company’s debt and in the risk stemming from foreign currency position, high profit margin expectation from the investment of railway wheels, market position in the sector, eased liquidity management via cash flow generation, asset quality and decrease in capital expenditures constituted the principle reasons underlying the upward revision of the company.