May 2016 Financial News

S&P affirms First Citizens BBB+ ratings

May 02, 2016

Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Rating Services has affirmed First Citizens’ counterparty credit rating at ‘BBB+/Negative/A-2’ effective April 26.

In its report on the banking group, the ratings agency said: “We’re affirming the ‘BBB+’ ratings on First Citizens Bank Ltd., another government-related entity (GRE). Finally, we are affirming the short-term ‘A-2’ ratings. The outlook remains negative, reflecting the negative trend in T&T’s BICRA economic risk and the negative outlook on the sovereign rating on Trinidad and Tobago.”

S&P said the rating action reflects its revision of the bank’s capitalization to very strong from strong after a review of its credit growth prospects.

“The negative outlook on First Citizens Bank reflects our expectation that if the BICRA economic negative risk were to materialize, leading us to lower T&T’s anchor to ‘bb+’, and we were to downgrade the sovereign, the ratings on the bank could be lowered by one notch, if their respective stand-alone credit profile (SACP) and current link and role to the government are unchanged.”

In a media statement, First Citizens said the affirmation is reflective of the sound risk management policies, consistent hard work and commitment exhibited by the group’s management and staff.

This latest ratings action comes almost a year after the banking group’s long term local and foreign currency deposit ratings were downgraded by another agency, Moody’s Investors Service. That action came a week after Moody’s downgraded the T&T government’s bond rating to Baa2 from Baa1 and its outlook to negative from stable.

Source:
Trinidad Guardian, A18
Saturday April 20, 2016