Fitch Ratings has affirmed Fortum's current long-term credit rating at BBB, but has revised the outlook from stable to negative.

According to Fitch, the revision in outlook reflects mainly the growing risks related to a further gas market disruption across the EU due to a potential stoppage of Russian gas flows. Fitch sees that this would have a negative impact especially for Fortum's subsidiary Uniper, potentially triggering also liquidity tension for Fortum.

Fitch assesses that Fortum's liquidity position is solid as Fortum has been proactive in managing liquidity during the recent months of market turbulence and has just signed new long-term facilities worth EUR 5.5 billion.

Fortum has had an investment grade rating of BBB from Fitch since 2018.

Fortum's objective is to have a solid investment grade rating of at least BBB to preserve financial flexibility and good access to capital markets. At the end of March 2022, Fortum Group had access to almost EUR 6 billion undrawn committed short- and long-term financing, and possessed liquid funds of EUR 6.4 billion. Fortum's financial net debt-to-comparable EBITDA ratio was at 1.0 times, clearly below the target level of

(C) 2022 Electronic News Publishing, source ENP Newswire