The Downgrade of Europe Has Begun

Ladies and gents, it starts. Credit Agricole and BNP downgrades imminent.

 

Moody's downgrades long-term ratings to Aa3 on normalised systemic support, Outlook negative, BFSR remains on review to consider impact of funding challenges on credit profile
 
Further to the review initiated on 15 June, 2011
 
 
Paris, September 14, 2011 -- Moody's Investors Service has announced an extension of its review of the C+ standalone Bank Financial Strength Rating (BFSR) of Societe Generale SA (SocGen), equivalent to a standalone Baseline Credit Assessment (BCA) of A2 on the long-term ratings scale, originally announced on 15 June, 2011. While Moody's concluded that SocGen's capital base currently provides an adequate cushion to support its Greek, Portuguese, and Irish exposures, Moody's announced that it will extend its review for downgrade of the C+ BFSR to consider the implications of the potentially persistent fragility in the bank financing markets, given its continued reliance on wholesale funding.
 
As announced in our press release of 15 June 2011, however, Moody's review also encompassed a re-consideration of systemic support assumptions factored into SocGen's long-term debt and deposit ratings under our Joint-Default Approach (JDA). Moody's has today concluded this aspect of the review by downgrading SocGen's debt and deposit ratings by one notch to Aa3 from Aa2. The outlook on the long-term debt ratings is negative. Moody's anticipates that the impact of our review on the BFSR would be limited to a one-notch downgrade, which would not in itself impact the long-term ratings given our revised support assumptions for SocGen, which anticipate increased uplift at a lower standalone rating level. However, a conclusion with a negative outlook on the BFSR would lead to a renewed negative outlook on the long-term ratings. Given this possibility, we are maintaining our negative outlook on the long-term ratings during the review of the BFSR.

Read full article...