London, 30 May 2014 -- Moody's Investors Service has today upgraded four senior tranches and
placed on review for possible upgrade eight senior tranches in five Irish
residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) transactions.
The rating agency has upgraded to Aa3 (sf) the senior tranches in Emerald
Mortgages No 5 Limited and Fastnet Securities 5 Ltd and placed eight senior
tranches in Celtic Residential Irish Mortgage Securitisation No.
14, No. 15 and No. 16 (CELTIC 14, 15 and 16)
on review for possible upgrade.
Today's rating upgrades and review for possible upgrade actions follow
the upgrade of the Irish sovereign rating to Baa1 from Baa3 on 16 May
2014 and the resulting increase of the local-currency country ceiling
to Aa3 from A2 (https://www.moodys.com/research/PR_299549)
which reflect the country's reduced economic, legal and political
risks.
The majority of notes of Irish RMBS are currently on review for possible
upgrade since the two successive upgrades of the Irish sovereign rating
in January and May 2014.
Please refer to the end of the Ratings Rationale section for a list of
affected ratings.
RATINGS RATIONALE
Today's upgrade of four senior notes in Emerald Mortgages No. 5
Ltd and Fastnet Securities 5 Ltd have been prompted by (1) the increase
in the maximum achievable rating of the Irish local-currency country
ceiling to Aa3 from A2; (2) sufficiency of credit enhancement in
the affected transactions; and (3) well mitigated counterparty risks
including those relating to servicers, account banks and swap providers.
The review for upgrade of eight senior notes in CELTIC 14, 15 and
16 reflects the reduced country risk leading to the review of (1) the
transactions' loss distribution, an integral part in determining
the affected notes ratings and (2) the current credit enhancement level.
During the review process, Moody's will also factor in its analysis
any potential linkage of transactions to relevant counterparties,
such as servicers, account banks or swap providers.
The principal methodology used in these ratings was Moody's Approach to
Rating RMBS Using the MILAN Framework published in March 2014.
Please see the Credit Policy page on www.moodys.com for
a copy of this methodology.
FACTORS THAT WOULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE OR DOWNGRADE OF THE RATINGS:
Factors or circumstances that could lead to an upgrade of the ratings
include (1) further reduction in country risk, performance of the
underlying collateral that is better than Moody's expected, (2)
deleveraging of the capital structure and (3) improvements in the credit
quality of the transaction counterparties.
Factors or circumstances that could lead to a downgrade of the ratings
include (1) an increase in country risk, performance of the underlying
collateral that is worse than Moody's expects, (2) deterioration
in the notes' available credit enhancement and (3) deterioration in the
credit quality of the transaction counterparties.
LIST OF AFFECTED RATINGS:
Issuer: CELTIC RESIDENTIAL IRISH MORTGAGE SECURITISATION NO.
14 LTD
....EUR 1000M Class A1 Notes, A2 (sf)
Placed Under Review for Possible Upgrade; previously on Jan 24,
2014 Upgraded to A2 (sf)
....EUR 1000M Class A2 Notes, A2 (sf)
Placed Under Review for Possible Upgrade; previously on Jan 24,
2014 Upgraded to A2 (sf)
....EUR 1000M Class A3 Notes, A2 (sf)
Placed Under Review for Possible Upgrade; previously on Jan 24,
2014 Upgraded to A2 (sf)
Issuer: CELTIC RESIDENTIAL IRISH MORTGAGE SECURITISATION NO.
15 LTD
....EUR 700M Class A1 Notes, A2 (sf)
Placed Under Review for Possible Upgrade; previously on Jan 24,
2014 Upgraded to A2 (sf)
....EUR 700M Class A2 Notes, A2 (sf)
Placed Under Review for Possible Upgrade; previously on Jan 24,
2014 Upgraded to A2 (sf)
....EUR 700M Class A3 Notes, A2 (sf)
Placed Under Review for Possible Upgrade; previously on Jan 24,
2014 Upgraded to A2 (sf)
Issuer: CELTIC RESIDENTIAL IRISH MORTGAGE SECURITISATION NO.
16 LTD
....EUR 260M Class A1 Notes, A2 (sf)
Placed Under Review for Possible Upgrade; previously on Jan 24,
2014 Upgraded to A2 (sf)
....EUR 260M Class A2 Notes, A2 (sf)
Placed Under Review for Possible Upgrade; previously on Jan 24,
2014 Upgraded to A2 (sf)
Issuer: Emerald Mortgages No. 5 Limited
....EUR 2375M Class A Notes, Upgraded
to Aa3 (sf); previously on Feb 10, 2014 Upgraded to A2 (sf)
Issuer: Fastnet Securities 5 Ltd
....EUR 510M Class A1 Notes, Upgraded
to Aa3 (sf); previously on Jan 24, 2014 Upgraded to A2 (sf)
....EUR 510M Class A2 Notes, Upgraded
to Aa3 (sf); previously on Jan 24, 2014 Upgraded to A2 (sf)
....EUR 527M Class A3 Notes, Upgraded
to Aa3 (sf); previously on Jan 24, 2014 Upgraded to A2 (sf)
REGULATORY DISCLOSURES
For further specification of Moody's key rating assumptions and
sensitivity analysis, see the sections Methodology Assumptions and
Sensitivity to Assumptions of the disclosure form.
Moody's did not receive or take into account a third party assessment
on the due diligence performed regarding the underlying assets or financial
instruments related to the monitoring of these transactions in the past
six months.
The analysis relies on an assessment of collateral characteristics to
determine the collateral loss distribution, that is, the function
that correlates to an assumption about the likelihood of occurrence to
each level of possible losses in the collateral. As a second step,
Moody's evaluates each possible collateral loss scenario using a
model that replicates the relevant structural features to derive payments
and therefore the ultimate potential losses for each rated instrument.
The loss a rated instrument incurs in each collateral loss scenario,
weighted by assumptions about the likelihood of events in that scenario
occurring, results in the expected loss of the rated instrument.
As the section on loss and cash flow analysis describes, Moody's
quantitative analysis entails an evaluation of scenarios that stress factors
contributing to sensitivity of ratings and take into account the likelihood
of severe collateral losses or impaired cash flows. Moody's
weights the impact on the rated instruments based on its assumptions of
the likelihood of the events in such scenarios occurring.
For ratings issued on a program, series or category/class of debt,
this announcement provides certain 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 certain 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 certain 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.
For any affected securities or rated entities receiving direct credit
support from the primary entity(ies) of this rating action, and
whose ratings may change as a result of this rating action, the
associated regulatory disclosures will be those of the guarantor entity.
Exceptions to this approach exist for the following disclosures,
if applicable to jurisdiction: Ancillary Services, Disclosure
to rated entity, Disclosure from rated entity.
Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit
rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating
review.
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.
Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com
for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.
Ali Khan
Associate Analyst
Structured Finance Group
Moody's Investors Service Ltd.
One Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London E14 5FA
United Kingdom
JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456
SUBSCRIBERS: 44 20 7772 5454
Christophe de Noaillat
MD - Structured Finance
Structured Finance Group
JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456
SUBSCRIBERS: 44 20 7772 5454
Carole Bernard
Vice President - Senior Analyst
Structured Finance Group
JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456
SUBSCRIBERS: 44 20 7772 5454
Releasing Office:
Moody's Investors Service Ltd.
One Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London E14 5FA
United Kingdom
JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456
SUBSCRIBERS: 44 20 7772 5454
Moody's takes rating actions on Irish RMBS transactions