December 2 (SeeNews) - Moody's Investors Service on Wednesday withdrew the ratings of Bulgaria's blue-chip First Investment Bank (FIBank) for business reasons, the global ratings agency said.
"This action was taken with the consent of both parties and does not reflect a change in the bank's creditworthiness," Moody's said in a statement.
Moody's withdrew FIBank's financial strength rating (BFSR) D- with negative outlook and the long-term local and foreign currency deposit ratings Ba2 with negative outlook.
Moody's previous rating action on the lender was on November 27, 2009, when it changed the bank's BFSR to D- from D and downgraded its long-term local and foreign currency deposit ratings to Ba2 from Ba1. Following the downgrade, FIBank said it was giving up Moody's credit rating services.
FIBank (www.fibank.bg) was the sixth largest bank in Bulgaria with total assets of 4.02 billion levs ($3.05 billion/2.05 billion euro) as of September 30, down 5.6% from 4.26 billion levs at the end of 2008, central bank data showed.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)
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