Moody’s withdraws ratings of Russia’s Mechel

MOSCOW, Mar 24 (PRIME) -- International rating agency Moody’s has withdrawn the Caa3 ratings of Russian debt-ridden metals and mining group Mechel and its default rating of Ca-PD/LD for internal reasons, the agency said in a statement Tuesday.

Both ratings had negative outlooks.

Mechel has been in debt restructuring talks with its core creditors – Sberbank, Gazprombank and VTB – for several months. On February 24, Mechel said it plans to ask the government for help under the anti-crisis plan.

But VTB received good debt settlement proposals from Mechel on March 17 and it sees opportunities to continue the dialogue, a spokesman for the bank told PRIME March 18,

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