Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Moody's downgrades Spanish banks again

Madrid, June 25, 2012

Moody's Investors Service has today downgraded by one to four notches the long-term debt and deposit ratings for 28 Spanish banks and two issuer ratings.

Today's actions follow the weakening of the Spanish government's creditworthiness, as captured by Moody's downgrade of Spain's government bond ratings to Baa3 from A3 on 13 June 2012, and the initiation of a review for further downgrade. For more details on the rationale for the sovereign downgrade, please refer to the press release (http://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-downgrades-Spains-government-bond-...).

Moody's adds that today's downgrades of the long-term debt and deposit ratings also reflect the lowering of most of these banks' standalone credit assessments.

The debt and deposit ratings declined by one notch for three banks, by two notches for 11 banks, by three notches for ten banks and by four notches for six banks. The short-term ratings for 19 banks have also been downgraded between one and two notches, triggered by the long-term ratings changes.

Today's actions reflect, to various degrees across these banks, two main drivers:

(i) Moody's assessment of the reduced creditworthiness of the Spanish sovereign, which not only affects the government's ability to support the banks, but also weighs on banks' standalone credit profiles, and

(ii) Moody's expectation that the banks' exposures to commercial real estate (CRE) will likely cause higher losses, which might increase the likelihood that these banks will require external support.

No comments:

Post a Comment