Bangkok--8 Jul--Standard & Poor's
The number of global entities that are most at risk of downgrades fell by seven since our last report, to 451 as of June 27, said an article published by Standard & Poor's Global Fixed Income Research, titled "Global Potential Downgrades: Number Of Issuers At Risk Of Downgrades Declines Slightly After Two Months Of Increases."
"The total remains far below its peak of 1,028 in April 2009, and this month marks the first decrease following two months of mild increases in the number of potential downgrades," said Diane Vazza, head of Standard & Poor's Global Fixed Income Research.
Potential downgrades are entities that have either negative outlooks or ratings on CreditWatch with negative implications across rating categories 'AAA' to 'B-'.
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has downgraded 25 entities that were on the potential downgrades list last month. Of these, seven remain on the list with negative outlooks or ratings on CreditWatch with negative implications.
Of the entities on last month's list that were subsequently downgraded, five are Greek issuers, including four banks and the sovereign itself. These bank downgrades resulted from Standard & Poor's Ratings Services lowering its long-term sovereign rating on Greece to 'CCC' on June 13.
In our view, 17 of the 21 sectors show lower downgrade risk than they have historically. When we measured the gap between the current negative bias and the historical averages, we found that credit conditions in most sectors are less negative than they have been historically.
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Media Contact:
Mimi Barker, New York (1) 212-438-5054,
[email protected]
Analyst Contacts:
Diane Vazza, New York (1) 212-438-2760