State-owned tanker company escapes Russia bond downgrade MOODY’s Investors Service has maintained its Ba2 rating on Russia’s state-owned tanker giant Sovcomflot, despite its recent downgrade of the country's government bonds.
Effectively, the ratings agency is arguing that the company, in which the Kremlin is the 100% shareholder, will escape the worst impact of what it believes to be Russia's increasingly subdued medium-term growth prospects.
Those prospects have been exacerbated by sanctions over the Ukraine, and the gradual erosion of the country's foreign-exchange reserves. Separately, Sovcomflot’s Cyprus-based shipmanagement arm Unicom has opted for full membership of InterManager, the international trade association for third party and in-house ship managers.
Sergey Popravko, managing director of Unicom, said: “We at Unicom felt this was the right time to join InterManager. We look forward to collaborating with fellow shipmanagement companies to the benefit of our sector and to ensuring that shipmanagers gain the recognition they deserve within the international maritime industry.”