London, 31 July 2014 -- Moody's Investors Service has today upgraded the rating of one senior
note and one mezzanine note while confirming the rating of the junior
note in the Irish residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS)
transaction Emerald Mortgages No. 4 plc. This rating action
is prompted by better than expected collateral performance combined with
the increase in country ceiling to Aa3.
Issuer: Emerald Mortgages No. 4 plc
....EUR 1428M Class A Notes, Upgraded
to Baa3 (sf); previously on Jan 24, 2014 Ba2 (sf) Placed Under
Review for Possible Upgrade
....EUR 34.5M Class B Notes,
Upgraded to Caa1 (sf); previously on Jan 24, 2014 Caa3 (sf)
Placed Under Review for Possible Upgrade
....EUR 37.5M Class C Notes,
Confirmed at Ca (sf); previously on Jan 24, 2014 Ca (sf) Placed
Under Review for Possible Upgrade
Today's rating upgrades 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 (http://www.moodys.com/viewresearchdoc.aspx?docid=PR_299549)
which reflect the country's reduced economic, legal and political
risks.
Today's rating action concludes the review of the notes placed on review
for upgrade in January 2014, following the first upgrade of the
Irish sovereign rating this year to Baa3 on 17 January 2014.
RATINGS RATIONALE
Today's rating action reflects the impact of the upgrade of the sovereign
ceiling and improvement in collateral performance.
The Irish sovereign rating was upgraded to Baa1 in May 2014 and resulted
in an increase in the local-currency country ceiling to Aa3.
The Irish country ceiling, and therefore the maximum rating that
Moody's will assign to a domestic Irish issuer including structured finance
transactions backed by Irish receivables, is Aa3 (sf).
Moody's has reassessed its lifetime loss expectation taking into account
the collateral performance to date. The 90 days delinquencies have
decreased from 12.5% in December 2013 to 11.8%
in July 2014. Moody's expect the recent recovery in Irish
house prices to be supportive of future recoveries on repossessed mortgage
loans. As a result, Moody's reduced its expected loss
assumption on the transaction from 3.4% to 3.0%
on the original pool balance.
The ratings of the senior notes are also capped in the Baa range due to
operational risk as per the 'Global Structured Finance Operational
Risk Guidelines' published by Moody's Investors Service in
June 2013. The non-investment grade rating of the servicer,
EBS Ltd, coupled with the absence of any back up servicing arrangements
is the reason behind this cap.
Factors that would lead to an upgrade or downgarde of the rating:
Factors or circumstances that could lead to a downgrade of the rating
affected by today's action would be the worse-than-expected
performance of the underlying collateral, deterioration in the credit
quality of the counterparties and an increase in sovereign risk.
Factors or circumstances that could lead to an upgrade of the rating affected
by today's action would be the better-than-expected
performance of the underlying assets, and a decline in both counterparty
and sovereign risk.
The principal methodology used in this rating 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.
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 this transaction
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
Anthony Parry
VP - Senior Credit Officer
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 upgrades 2 notes in the Irish RMBS transaction: Emerald Mortgages No. 4 plc