Fitch assigns Alliance Bank's eurobond final 'BB-' rating

/REUTERS, May 17, 06/ - Fitch Ratings has today assigned Alliance Bank's ("Alliance") and ALB Finance B.V.'s ("ALB") USD1.5 billion global medium- term note programme final ratings of Long-term 'BB-' (BB minus) for senior unsecured notes with maturities in excess of one year and Short-term 'B' for senior unsecured notes with maturities of less than one year. It has also assigned a final Long-term 'BB-' (BB minus) rating to the recent 8.75% USD250 million issue due April 2011, which is the first draw-down under the programme. Alliance is rated Issuer Default 'BB-'(BB minus)/Stable, Short- term 'B', Individual 'D', and Support '3'. Alliance was founded in 1993 in Pavlodar and in 1999 merged with another mid-sized regional bank. New shareholders led by Seimar Holding Company acquired Alliance in 2001, and since then it has grown quickly to become one of the larger banks in Kazakhstan; it ranked fifth by assets and fourth by shareholders' equity at end-2005. For more details on the structure of this transaction, please refer to Fitch's announcement of 30 March 2006, available on the agency's subscriber website at www.fitchresearch.com. Contact: Alexei Kechko, James Watson, Moscow, Tel: +7 495 956 9901. Media Relations: Alla Izmailova, Moscow, Tel: +7 495 956 9903; Jon Laycock, London, Tel: +44 20 7417 4327. [2006-05-17]