Sao Paulo, February 16, 2011 -- Moody's Investors Service upgraded the bank financial strength rating
(BFSR) of Banco GMAC S.A. (Banco GMAC) to D-,
from E+. Moody's also raised Banco GMAC's long-term
local and foreign currency deposit ratings to Ba3 from B2, as well
as the national scale deposit ratings to A3.br and BR-2
from Ba1.br and BR-4, in the long- and short-term,
respectively. In addition, the rating agency affirmed Banco
GMAC's short-term local and foreign currency deposit ratings at
Not Prime. The outlook on all ratings is stable.
RATINGS RATIONALE
The upgrade of Banco GMAC's ratings follows the lift of its parent
company Ally Financial Inc.'s issuer and senior unsecured
ratings to B1 from B3, announced on February 7, 2011.
For further details, refer to the press release entitled "Moody's
upgrades Ally Financial senior unsecured to B1, ResCap to Ca."
Moody's noted that the upgrade of Banco GMAC's ratings reflects
the much reduced uncertainties about its funding and capitalization,
which had been triggered by the significantly weakened franchise of its
parent company over the past three years. Throughout this period,
Banco GMAC has maintained its access to the domestic funding market and
has managed to diversify its sources, with limited dependence from
its head-office, either by selling its loans to third parties
or by tapping into special funding from the deposit insurance corporation.
These efforts, however, have not prevented an increase in
the bank's funding cost, which, in turn, have
hurt its profitability.
The rating upgrade is also supported by the resilience of the bank's
car finance operation in Brazil, as suggested by its relatively
stable market share despite much increased competition in the segment.
This performance is the result of Banco GMAC's long-standing
relationship with General Motors and its dealers, from which the
bank sources nearly 90% of its loan originations; it also
reflects the sustainably robust demand for cars and car financing in Brazil,
which has ensured that business volumes remained strong.
Moody's notes that Banco GMAC's unsupported ratings (D-/Ba3)
are currently positioned one notch higher than Ally's B1 issuer
rating, in recognition of the relatively less challenging conditions
faced by the Brazilian operation. Nevertheless, further upward
movements on the parent's ratings may not necessarily trigger similar
movements on Banco GMAC's ratings nor the maintenance of such gap.
This is because Banco GMAC's ratings are constrained by its limited
earnings generation potential, which is intrinsically tied to the
bank's monoline niche activity of car financing, and which
remains a highly competitive segment. Profitability is also constrained
by the predominantly wholesale funding profile that tends to be volatile
and expensive, thus potentially pressuring the bank's profit
margins. We note that recent regulatory measures for consumer financing
in Brazil have not directly affected Banco GMAC's origination volumes,
but have resulted in higher funding costs overall.
Additionally, Moody's views changes in Banco GMAC's asset
quality metrics over the past two years as reflecting increased volume
of loan sales to third parties. The rating agency, however,
will continue to monitor the performance of the loan book and asset quality
indicators to the extent that a scenario of increasing competition could
result in less strict loan origination policies.
The last rating action on Banco GMAC was on February 25, 2010,
when Moody's upgraded Banco GMAC's BFSR to E+ from E, the long-term
local and foreign currency deposit ratings to B2 from Caa2, and
the long-term national scale deposit rating of to Ba1.br
from B2.br. The outlook on all ratings was stable.
The principal methodologies used in this rating were "Bank Financial Strength
Ratings: Global Methodology" published in February 2007, and
"Incorporation of Joint Default Analysis into Moody's Bank Ratings:
A Refined Methodology" published in March 2007.
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 August 2010 entitled "Mapping Moody's National Scale
Ratings to Global Scale Ratings."
Banco GMAC is headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil.
As of September 2010, Banco GMAC had total assets of R$7.3
billion (US$4.3 billion) and shareholders' equity of R$1.1
billion (US$678 million).
The following ratings of Banco GMAC S.A. were upgraded:
Bank financial strength rating: to D- from E+,
stable outlook
Long-term global local-currency deposit rating: to
Ba3 from B2, stable outlook
Long-term foreign-currency deposit rating: to Ba3
from B2, stable outlook
Long-term Brazilian national scale deposit ratings: to A3.br
from Ba1.br, stable outlook
Short-term Brazilian national scale deposit ratings: to BR-2
from BR-4
The following ratings of Banco GMAC S.A. were affirmed:
Short-term global local-currency deposit rating: Not
Prime
Short-term foreign-currency deposit rating: Not Prime
REGULATORY DISCLOSURES
Information sources used to prepare the credit rating are the following:
parties involved in the ratings, public information, confidential
and proprietary Moody's Investors Service information.
Moody's Investors Service considers the quality of information available
on the issuer or obligation satisfactory for the purposes of maintaining
a credit rating.
Moody's adopts all necessary measures so that the information it uses
in assigning a credit rating is of sufficient quality and from sources
Moody's considers to be reliable including, when appropriate,
independent third-party sources. However, Moody's
is not an auditor and cannot in every instance independently verify or
validate information received in the rating process.
Please see ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on Moodys.com
for the last rating action and the rating history.
The date on which some Credit Ratings were first released goes back to
a time before Moody's Investors Service's Credit Ratings were fully digitized
and accurate data may not be available. Consequently, Moody's
Investors Service provides a date that it believes is the most reliable
and accurate based on the information that is available to it.
Please see the ratings disclosure page on our website www.moodys.com
for further information.
Please see the Credit Policy page on Moodys.com for the methodologies
used in determining ratings, further information on the meaning
of each rating category and the definition of default and recovery.
Sao Paulo
Alexandre Albuquerque
Analyst
Financial Institutions Group
Moody's America Latina Ltda.
JOURNALISTS: 800-891-2518
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New York
M. Celina Vansetti
Senior Vice President
Financial Institutions Group
Moody's Investors Service
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Moody's upgrades Banco GMAC's BFSR to D-; deposits to Ba3
