Madrid, May 29, 2014 -- Moody's Investors Service has today taken the following rating actions
on 29 Portuguese asset-backed securities (ABS) and residential
mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) transactions.
The rating agency has upgraded to Baa1(sf) six notes in five Portuguese
ABS and eight notes in seven Portuguese RMBS transactions. At the
same time, Moody's placed on review for upgrade three notes in three
Portuguese ABS and 42 notes in 22 Portuguese RMBS transactions.
Moody's placed on review direction uncertain one note in one Portuguese
RMBS transaction.
Today's rating upgrades and review for upgrade actions follow the upgrade
of the Portuguese sovereign rating to Ba2 on review for upgrade from Ba3
and the resulting increase of the local-currency country ceiling
to Baa1 from Baa3 which reflect improvements in institutional strength
and reduced susceptibility to event risk associated with lower government
liquidity and banking sector risks (https://www.moodys.com/research/PR_298839).
Performance issues which the reduced country risk may not mitigate prompted
today's rating review action direction uncertain on tranche C of
Lusitano Mortgages No. 6 Limited ("Lusitano 6").
Please click here http://www.moodys.com/viewresearchdoc.aspx?docid=PBS_SF368810
for the list of affected credit ratings. This list is an integral
part of this press release and provides, for each of the credit
ratings covered, Moody's disclosures on the following items:
Principal Methodology used
Lead analyst
Person approving the credit rating
Releasing office
RATINGS RATIONALE
Today's upgrade of the six notes in five Portuguese ABS and eight notes
in seven Portuguese RMBS transactions has been prompted by (1) the reduced
country risk as reflected by the increase in the maximum achievable rating
in Portugal (the local-currency country ceiling) to Baa1 from Baa3;
(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 three notes in 3 Portuguese ABS and 42 notes
in 22 Portuguese RMBS transactions 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.
Performance issues which the reduced country risk may not mitigate prompted
today's rating review action direction uncertain on B3(sf) rated
tranche C of Lusitano 6. Delinquencies seem to have stabilised
in the last months with 60+ days delinquencies standing at 2.03%
of current pool balance as of the last investor report in March 2014,
but cumulative defaults continued to increase to 8.75% of
original balance as of the same date, with a pool factor of 59.65%,
resulting in a EUR 15.7 million unpaid PDL as of last investor
report. Credit Enhancement under tranche C is 4.94%
as of today.
Moody's upgraded to Baa1(sf) the rating of the notes of the Portuguese
electricity tariff deficits deals, Volta Electricity Receivables
Securitisation (Volta) and Volta II Electricity Receivables Securitisation
Notes (Volta II) as Moody's considers the assets backing the notes in
Portuguese electricity tariff deficits to be high quality receivables,
given their current backing by laws and regulation. While Volta
and Volta II benefit from liquidity reserve , the other two similar
transactions EnergyOn No.1 Securitisation Notes (EnergyOn 1) &
EnergyOn No. 2 Securitisation Notes (EnergyOn 2)rely on the swap
agreements to avoid payment disruption. Moody's placed on
review for upgrade EnergyOn 1 & EnergyOn 2 based on the linkage to
the swap counterparty, Deutsche Bank AG (A2/P-1, DNG)
and Banco Santander S.A. (Spain) (Baa1/P-2) respectively.
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, (2) performance of
the underlying collateral that is better than Moody's expected,
(3) deleveraging of the capital structure and (4) 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, (2) performance of the
underlying collateral that is worse than Moody's expects, (3) deterioration
in the notes' available credit enhancement, and (4) deterioration
in the credit quality of the transaction counterparties.
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 for all transactions except for EnergyOn No.1 Securitisation
Notes, EnergyOn No. 2 Securitisation Notes, Volta Electricity
Receivables Securitisation, Volta II Electricity Receivables Securitisation
Notes 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.
In rating EnergyOn No.1 Securitisation Notes, EnergyOn No.
2 Securitisation Notes, Volta Electricity Receivables Securitisation,
Volta II Electricity Receivables Securitisation Notes Moody's did
not use any models, or loss or cash flow analysis, in its
analysis.
As the section on loss and cash flow analysis describes for all transaction
except EnergyOn No.1 Securitisation Notes, EnergyOn No.
2 Securitisation Notes, Volta Electricity Receivables Securitisation,
Volta II Electricity Receivables Securitisation Notes, 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 EnergyOn No.1 Securitisation Notes, EnergyOn No.
2 Securitisation Notes, Volta Electricity Receivables Securitisation,
Volta II Electricity Receivables Securitisation Notes, Moody's
did not use any stress scenario simulations in its analysis.
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.
The below contact information is provided for information purposes only.
Please see the ratings tab of the issuer page at www.moodys.com,
for each of the ratings covered, Moody's disclosures on the
lead analyst and the Moody's legal entity that has issued the ratings.
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.
Maria Turbica Manrique
Asst Vice President - Analyst
Structured Finance Group
Moody's Investors Service Espana, S.A.
Calle Principe de Vergara, 131, 6 Planta
Madrid 28002
Spain
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
Alberto Barbachano
Vice President - Senior Analyst
Structured Finance Group
JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456
SUBSCRIBERS: 44 20 7772 5454
Releasing Office:
Moody's Investors Service Espana, S.A.
Calle Principe de Vergara, 131, 6 Planta
Madrid 28002
Spain
JOURNALISTS: 44 20 7772 5456
SUBSCRIBERS: 44 20 7772 5454
Moody's takes rating actions on Portuguese ABS and RMBS transactions