{"id":179095,"date":"2017-06-14T08:11:48","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T06:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=179095"},"modified":"2017-06-14T08:11:48","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T06:11:48","slug":"moodys-issues-further-downgrades-for-mtn-eskom-sasol-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/179095\/moodys-issues-further-downgrades-for-mtn-eskom-sasol-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Moody&#8217;s issues further downgrades for MTN, Eskom, Sasol and more"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Moody\u2019s has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moodys.com\/research\/Moodys-downgrades-MTNs-global-rating-to-Ba1-outlook-stable--PR_368064\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>downgraded the credit rating<\/strong><\/a> of numerous South African companies, including MTN.<\/p>\n<p>MTN has been assigned a Ba1 corporate family rating and a Ba1-PD probability of default rating. Moody\u2019s has also withdrawn MTN\u2019s long-term Baa3 rating.<\/p>\n<p>Moody\u2019s said its outlook has changed from stable to negative, and the new rating assignment was driven by the downgrade of the South African sovereign bond ratings to Baa3 negative.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the absence of improving credit profiles within the major markets in which MTN operates (such as South Africa, Nigeria, Iran, and Ghana), MTNs rating is unlikely to be upgraded to Baa3,\u201d said Moody\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, Moody\u2019s would consider an upgrade if MTN re-establishes a track record of dividends being up-streamed from key markets such that total debt to EBITDA on a consolidated or at MTN holdings level were to trend towards 1.5x and MTN\u2019s consolidated EBITDA margin was on an improving trend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Moody\u2019s also downgraded the credit ratings of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moodys.com\/research\/Moodys-downgrades-Eskoms-ratings-to-Ba2Ba3-confirms-A2za-NSR-negative--PR_368147\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Eskom<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moodys.com\/research\/Moodys-downgrades-Sasol-to-Baa3-negative-following-downgrade-of-SA--PR_368035\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sasol<\/a><\/strong>, and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.moodys.com\/research\/Moodys-downgrades-ACSAs-rating-to-Baa3-negative-outlook--PR_367873\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Airports Company South Africa<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The ratings agency said the downgrades reflect the weakening of the sovereign rating credit profile, following the downgrade of South African government bond ratings.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/178769\/moodys-downgrades-5-top-banks-in-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Moody\u2019s downgrades 5 top banks in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Moody\u2019s has downgraded the credit rating of numerous South African companies, including MTN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":109699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-179095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-active"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179095"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179107,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179095\/revisions\/179107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}