New York, March 22, 2012 -- The following release represents Moody's Investors Service's summary credit
opinion on Banco do Brasil S.A. and includes certain regulatory
disclosures regarding its ratings. This release does not constitute
any change in Moody's ratings or rating rationale for Banco do Brasil
S.A..
Moody's current ratings on Banco do Brasil S.A. are:
Senior Unsecured MTN Program (foreign currency) (P)Baa1
Long Term Bank Deposits (domestic currency) A2, on review for downgrade
Long Term Bank Deposits (foreign currency) Baa2
Bank Financial Strength C+, on review for downgrade
Short Term Bank Deposits (domestic currency) P-1, on review
for downgrade
Short Term Bank Deposits (foreign currency) P-2
NSR Long Term Bank Deposits (domestic currency) Aaa.br
NSR Short Term Bank Deposits (domestic currency) BR-1
RATING RATIONALE
Moody's assigns a bank financial strength rating (BFSR) of D to Banco
Mercantil do Brasil S.A. (BMB), translating into a
Baseline Credit Assessment of Ba2. In Moody's opinion, BMB
would be eligible for a certain degree of systemic support, given
its regional footprint in the state of Minas Gerais (71 out of 163 branches
in the country). Because of that, Moody's incorporates a
low probability of systemic support for BMB within the country.
Despite BMB's presence in other states of southeast, south,
northeast and mid-west regions, the bank has a small market
share in terms of retail deposits within the Brazilian financial system
(0.12% as of September 2011). Nevertheless,
the low probability of systemic support is not sufficient to lift the
global local currency (GLC) deposit rating beyond Ba2. This GLC
is a direct mapping out of BMB's D bank financial strength rating.
The rating also reflects the bank's good core funding in its native region,
which is favorable relative to those of other niche players, and
is in line with that of larger banks in BMB's main market. BMB's
loan portfolio is appropriately granular, reflecting its business
focus as a middle-market and consumer lender.
The BFSR is restricted, however, by the strong competition
for retail banking in Brazil, which, along with the current
decline in interest rates could lead to margin compression. Moreover,
the bank's relatively high expensive structure and credit costs
also constrain the BFSR.
On January 20, 2012, Moody's affirmed all ratings assigned
to BMB. The outlook on all ratings remained stable.
Rating Outlook
All ratings have stable outlook.
What Could Change the Rating - Up
Factors that could have an upward pressure on ratings include a potentially
better quality of the bank's loan book while increasing its market share
within and outside its core region. Ratings could also benefit
from enhanced quality of earnings generation, which could lead to
improved profitability and asset quality ratios. Other positive
developments for ratings could include the maintenance of granular retail
funding base, balance sheet growth and competitive power.
What Could Change the Rating - Down
The BFSR could be affected by material and sustained reductions in earnings
and profit margins, which could weaken the bank's financial flexibility
and capital growth. An aggressive leveraging of the bank's balance
sheet to expand operations beyond core business and a failure to adequately
control credit and operational risk could also drain rating forces.
The methodologies used in this rating were Bank Financial Strength Ratings:
Global Methodology published in February 2007, Incorporation of
Joint-Default Analysis into Moody's Bank Ratings: A Refined
Methodology published in March 2007, and Mapping Moody's National
Scale Ratings to Global Scale Ratings published in March 2011 .
Please see the Credit Policy page on www.moodys.com for
a copy of these methodologies.
Moody's National Scale Ratings (NSRs) are intended as relative measures
of creditworthiness among debt issues and issuers within a country,
enabling market participants to better differentiate relative risks.
NSRs differ from Moody's global scale ratings in that they are not globally
comparable with the full universe of Moody's rated entities, but
only with NSRs for other rated debt issues and issuers within the same
country. NSRs are designated by a ".nn" country
modifier signifying the relevant country, as in ".mx"
for Mexico. For further information on Moody's approach to national
scale ratings, please refer to Moody's Rating Implementation Guidance
published in March 2011 entitled "Mapping Moody's National Scale
Ratings to Global Scale Ratings".
The Local Market analyst for this rating is Ceres Lisboa, 55-11-3043-7317.
REGULATORY DISCLOSURES
Although this credit rating has been issued in a non-EU country
which has not been recognized as endorsable at this date, this credit
rating is deemed "EU qualified by extension" and may still
be used by financial institutions for regulatory purposes until 30 April
2012. Further information on the EU endorsement status and on the
Moody's office that has issued a particular Credit Rating is available
on www.moodys.com.
For ratings issued on a program, series or category/class of debt,
this announcement provides relevant regulatory disclosures in relation
to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series
or category/class of debt or pursuant to a program for which the ratings
are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's
rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider,
this announcement provides relevant regulatory disclosures in relation
to the rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular
rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the
support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings,
this announcement provides relevant regulatory disclosures in relation
to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive
rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt,
in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed
prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would
have affected the rating. For further information please see the
ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.
Information sources used to prepare the rating are the following:
parties involved in the ratings, public information, and confidential
and proprietary Moody's Investors Service information.
Moody's considers the quality of information available on the rated
entity, obligation or credit satisfactory for the purposes of issuing
a rating.
Moody's adopts all necessary measures so that the information it
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Please see the ratings disclosure page on www.moodys.com
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Please see the ratings disclosure page on www.moodys.com
for information on (A) MCO's major shareholders (above 5%)
and for (B) further information regarding certain affiliations that may
exist between directors of MCO and rated entities as well as (C) the names
of entities that hold ratings from MIS that have also publicly reported
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Please see Moody's Rating Symbols and Definitions on the Rating
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Please see ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com
for the last rating action and the rating history. The date on
which some ratings were first released goes back to a time before Moody's
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Consequently, Moody's provides a date that it believes is
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for further information.
Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to
the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has
issued the rating.
Jeanne Del Casino
VP - Senior Credit Officer
Financial Institutions Group
Moody's Investors Service, Inc.
250 Greenwich Street
New York, NY 10007
U.S.A.
JOURNALISTS: 212-553-0376
SUBSCRIBERS: 212-553-1653
M. Celina Vansetti
MD - Banking
Financial Institutions Group
JOURNALISTS: 212-553-0376
SUBSCRIBERS: 212-553-1653
Releasing Office:
Moody's Investors Service, Inc.
250 Greenwich Street
New York, NY 10007
U.S.A.
JOURNALISTS: 212-553-0376
SUBSCRIBERS: 212-553-1653
Moody's Disclosures on Credit Rating of Banco do Brasil S.A.