Concorde Capital Releases First Corporate Governance Ratings For Ukrainian Companies

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/