Standard & Poor’s international rating agency has reviewed its forecast on SOGAZ ratings from Stable to Positive.

The agency has confirmed the long-term ratings for SOGAZ – counterparty credit rating and financial stability rating – as BB and ruAA according to the Russian scale. “SOGAZ ratings reflect good results of operational activity, competitive advantages and sufficient capitalization of the company, as well as its close cooperation with OJSC Gazprom (BBB/Negative/A-3), the world leader in gas production,” announced Viktor Nikolsky, Credit Analyst with Standard & Poor’s.

The Positive forecast reflects expectations that the company will further demonstrate good results of its operations while improving the quality and increasing the diversification of its investment portfolio and will at least maintain its sufficient capitalization at the current level. S&P believes that the diversification of the SOGAZ insurance portfolio will be improved. The agency may improve the company’s ratings if these expectations are met.

“The fact that one of the leading international rating agencies has improved the forecast on SOGAZ ratings gives significant evidence of the right choice of our development strategy,” says Vadim Yanov, Chairman of SOGAZ Management Board. “Fees collected by SOGAZ under voluntary insurance contracts in the first six months have grown by 5.4%, while the classic insurance market as a whole has fallen by 9.8%. Even in these challenging economic conditions the company continues to improve its efficiency. We expect that the combined loss ratio of SOGAZ (an integrated efficiency indicator of an insurance company) will amount to 82% by the end of 2009, which we estimate as the best indicator among the leading Russian insurers. I would also like to emphasize that the current investment portfolio of SOGAZ allows us to be prepared even for the stressful scenario of economic development.”