The rating service declared that both the ratings and the rating outlook of OAO Alfa-Bank (Alfa-Bank; B+/Positive/B; national scale rating: ruA+) will not be in any way affected by the bank’s merging with its daughter enterprise OAO Bank Severnaya Kazna (no rating as of yet).

‘Our ratings kept accounting for OAO Alfa-Bank’s acquiring Bank Severnaya Kazna since the end of 2008 when the latter had actually been bought. For one, the ratings were based on Alfa-Bank’s consolidated data reports which covered Bank Severnaya Kazna. The assets of this Yekaterinburg-based bank operating in the Urals amount to less than 1% of Alfa-Bank’s consolidated performance results. Bank Severnaya Kazna has greatly improved on its balance sheet and financial performance indicators since the second half of 2008, when its problems, followed by the sale of the controlling shareholding to Alfa-Bank, were at their gravest,’ Standard & Poor's analysts say.

The merger is supposed to be completed by the summer of 2011 after the approval of the regulatory bodies has been obtained, the agency explains.