Moody’s and S&P to stay after Fitch decides to leave

CREDIT rating agencies Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have no intention of leaving South Africa, they said, following the decision by Fitch Ratings last week to withdraw from the local market.

Rebecca O’Neill, Fitch’s head of communications for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said the rating agency’s decision to withdraw was a business one.

As a subsidiary of Fitch Ratings, Fitch Southern Africa, was subject to the credit agency’s global policies and procedures as an authorised credit rating agency under EU regulation.

“After careful consideration, bare a number of failure to reform.

Russia, which only Fitch of the three main agencies at BBB- still rates as investment grade, is trading as if it were at least three notches into junk. S&P has South Africa’s sovereign credit rating at BBB-, with a stable outlook, the lowest investment grade.

Elna Moolman, a South

countries’ Fitch concluded that given the limited scale of Fitch Southern Africa’s activities, the increased operational burden and financial cost of complying with both EU and South African rating agency regulations, it was no longer commercially viable to maintain a locally registered subsidiary.”

O’Neill said it was Fitch’s intent to maintain coverage of southern African entities and transactions whenever possible, and that Fitch was in active discussions with the Financial Services Board to clarify restrictions on the regulatory status African economist at Macquarie First South Securities, said there were substantial differences between some of the key metrics that the rating agencies took into account in their rating assessments, with Brazil’s budget deficit and gross government debt comparing unfavourably with South Africa, for example.

However, in both cases, the of its ratings.

However, Kirsten Knight, a spokeswoman for Moody’s, said: “Moody’s is registered under the South African Credit Rating Services Act and we look forward to continuing to provide investors with opinions on credit risk.”

Konrad Reuss, the managing director of S&P in South Africa, said the agency had no intention of leaving the country and had a strong commitment to South Africa. – Wiseman Khuzwayo government’s commitment to the fiscal consolidation plans were arguably even more important than the numbers.

“A key reason why Brazil was downgraded was because S&P was no longer convinced that its government is committed to its fiscal consolidation path,” Moolman said. At this stage, there was still a general view that the South African gov-