Fitch Teleconference: SF and CVB Sovereign Risk Criteria Exposure Draft 14:00 GMT, 30 Jan

(The following statement was released by the rating agency)

LONDON, January 27 (Fitch) Fitch Ratings will host a teleconference on Thursday 
30 January 2014 at 14:00 GMT to discuss its recently-published exposure draft 
‘Criteria for Sovereign Risk in Developed Markets for Structured Finance and 
Covered Bonds’, dated 22 January 2014 and available at www.fitchratings.com.

The criteria exposure draft details how the maximum achievable ratings of 
structured finance (SF) notes and covered bonds (CVB) are constrained by the 
credit quality of the sovereign to which the SF transaction or CVB programme is 
exposed. It also outlines Fitch’s approach to assigning SF and CVB ratings that 
are higher than the relevant sovereign local currency Issuer Default Rating (LC 
IDR) and to rating multi-jurisdictional SF notes or CVB. 

The proposed criteria would be applicable globally to international scale 
ratings, with the exception of those jurisdictions that fall within the scope of 
the report “Criteria for Rating Securitisations in Emerging Markets”.

If implemented as described, the criteria are not expected to affect ratings 
assigned to SF notes or CVB whose securitised or cover pool assets are 
concentrated in a single jurisdiction. This is because its principles already  
reflect Fitch’s current global analytical practices with respect to rating caps. 
Similarly, they do not imply any major revision of the base case and stress 
assumptions currently applied by Fitch, which are already incorporating the 
risks discussed in these criteria. 

Some of the ratings assigned to multi-jurisdictional SF notes and CVB may be 
downgraded upon implementation of these criteria. In particular, we have 
identified 15 to 20 multi-jurisdictional SF transactions (out of 85) that could 
have one or more tranches downgraded, in most of the instances by one or two 
notches, and two multi-jurisdictional CVB programmes (out of 15) that could see 
downgrades by one or two notches on one or more bonds.

On the teleconference, Michele Cuneo and Stuart Jennings, Credit Officers for 
Structured Finance, will highlight the key themes of the exposure draft. 

To register your interest for this conference call and to receive the dial-in 
numbers and passcode, please paste the url below into your browser. Registration 
will remain open until two hours before the call.

https://www.yourconferencecentre.com/confcenter/PinCode/Pin_Code.aspx?100316&o=D 
gOOFeDUvcBRhF

A presentation will be sent to all registered participants one hour before the 
call.

For those unable to dial in to the call, a replay will be available on the 
website, www. fitchratings.com/events > past events, 24 hours after the end of 
the call 

Contacts:

Michele Cuneo

Senior Director

+39 02 87 90 87 230

Fitch Italia S.p.A. 

Vicolo S. Maria alla Porta, 1

20123 Milan

Beatrice Mezza

Senior Director

+44 203 530 1273  

Media Relations: Athos Larkou, London, Tel: +44 203 530 1549, Email: 
athos.larkou@fitchratings.com; Sandro Scenga, New York, Tel: +1 212-908-0278, 
Email: sandro.scenga@fitchratings.com.

Additional information is available at www.fitchratings.com.

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