The Russian steel producer Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) has announced that Moody's Investors Service has changed the outlook for its Ba1 corporate family rating and the outlook on its Aa1.ru national scale rating to ‘positive' from ‘stable'.
According to Moody's statement, this rating action reflects the fact that NLMK continues to demonstrate solid financial results and maintained its conservative financial policy in 2009 in spite of the challenging global environment for steel producers. Moody's decision has confirmed the company's high credit quality, reflecting the fact that the company continues to have one of the lowest level of debt and leverage among its peers.
Moody's notes that the company continues to demonstrate improving profitability, a sound liquidity profile and conservative financial metrics. The material improvements of the steel market in the H2 2009 have continued into Q1 and Q2 2010, which should help to further enhance the credit profile of NLMK.