Concorde Capital Releases First Corporate Governance Ratings For Ukrainian Companies.

KYIV, Ukraine -- Concorde Capital (www.concorde.com.ua) is proud to be the first investment bank to conduct a comprehensive study of corporate governance standards in Ukraine. Our study is aimed at providing foreign investors whose equity universe includes Ukrainian companies with greater insight into the corporate culture behind these companies.

We rated 118 companies, encompassing all sectors of the Ukrainian economy, based on Reporting & Disclosure, Investor Relations, Minority Concerns and Strategic Risks, as these areas are currently of the most interest to investors on the Ukrainian market.

The total scores possible in our rating ranges from -8.5 to 11.0:

11.0 - 9.0 Quality corporate governance standards (Q)

8.5 - 6.0 Above Average (AA)

5.5 - 3.0 Average (A)

2.5 - 0.0 Below Average (BA)

0.0 or less Poor (P)

Of the 118 companies, 7 earned our Q rating, 13 came in as AA's, there were 24 A's, 22 BA's and 51 companies received our P rating. The average score for our study is 1.5.

Consumer Goods: Leaders Of The Pack. Consumer goods producers' results were well above the rest of the sectors with a mean score of 6.9. High scores by Astarta (11.0), XXI Century (11.0) and solid marks by Sun Interbrew (5.0) and Slavutich (8.5) lifted the sector average. Large international holding companies backing the brewers as well as the listing of XXI Century in London and Astarta in Warsaw support their strong ratings.

Financial Services: Good, We Thought They'd Be Better. The sector received the second highest average score, 5.9. However, except for Ukrsotsbank (6.5), smaller local banks had the stronger scores, led by Bank Forum (9.0), Megabank (6.0), Ukrgazbank (5.5) and Rodovid Bank (5.0). While media darling Raiffeisen Bank Aval's score of 6.0 was also solid, it failed to meet our expectations in terms of investor relations.

Oil & Gas: Bogged Down By Refineries. Despite being boosted by the inclusion of three foreign-based companies (Cardinal 10.0, JKX 9.0, Regal 9.0) whose openness to investors and past IPOs brought them high scores, along with Ukrnafta (6.5) and our top scorer Galnaftogaz (11.0), the sector came in way behind financial services with a score of 4.3. The shoddy tallies received by the list's traded refineries pulled down the sector.

Metals & Mining: NITR & KSTL Head & Shoulders Above The Rest. As a sector, metals and mining had some of the lowest overall results in our research (average score 1.2), however, Nyzhnoydniprovsky Pipe and Mittal Steel Kryvy Rig went against the grain to bring strong marks of 7.5 and 6.5 respectively. NITR, despite being part of a large Ukrainian holding, leads in terms of transparency and financial disclosure in the pipe sector.

The entire report is available on our website: http://www.concorde.com.ua/downloads/