Moody’s ha assegnato un rating provvisorio “AAA” al primo bond del Fondo europeo di stabilita’ finanziaria (EFSF). Lo ha annunciato l’agenzia di rating. L’emissione obbligazionaria e’ stimata intorno ai 27 miliardi di euro che saranno usati per finanziare il pacchetto di aiuti dell’Unione europea da 85 miliardi di euro per sostenere l’Irlanda e realizzare una riserva di emergenza. Il primo bond e’ atteso per la prossima settimana e dovrebbe avere un importo tra 3 e 5 miliardi di euro.
Il debutto del primo bond del Fondo “salva-stati” sarà gestito da Citibank, Hsbc e Société Générale. Qualche giorno fa lo stesso Fondo aveva reso noto attraverso un comunicato che “l’Efsf raccoglierà nel corso del 2011 e 2012 fino a 26,5 miliardi di euro sul mercato dei capitali, con una transazione che deve essere considerata nell’ambito del programma di sostegno all’Irlanda”.
Da segnalare che anche Fitch e Standard & Poor’s hanno assegnato un rating di tripla A al fondo. “La prima emissione dell’ Efsf è una transazione importante per i mercati e per l’eurozona”, ha detto giorni fa Klaus Regling, amministratore delegato del fondo, precisando di essere fiducioso sul successo della prima emissione e dunque di credere che questa emissione aiuterà a “ripristinare la stabilità nei mercati dei debiti sovrani e a proteggere l’euro”.
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IL COMUNICATO DI FITCH
Fitch Ratings has assigned the European Financial Stability Facility’s (EFSF) EUR27bn guaranteed debt issuance programme a ‘AAA’ rating. All notes to be issued under the programme are expected to be assigned a rating of ‘AAA’. In the event of a downgrade of a major ‘AAA’ guarantor and in the absence of additional credit enhancement, notes issued and rated ‘AAA’ under the programme may subsequently be downgraded.
The ‘AAA’ rating of the notes is based on the credit enhancement provided by the ‘over-guarantee’ mechanism and cash reserves in place. The notes are irrevocably and unconditionally guaranteed by euro area member states (EAMS) – except for Greece (‘BB+’/Negative) and Ireland (‘BBB+’/Stable) which have ‘stepped out’ as guarantors – according to their respective share of ECB paid-in capital and may be drawn on a pro-rata basis by up to 120% in the event of a shortfall in amounts necessary to honour principal and coupon payments. The ‘over-guarantee’ mechanism allows ‘AAA’ EAMS to provide credit support in an amount greater than their share of due amounts and thus partially mitigates the risk of non-payment by other guarantors with a weaker sovereign credit rating. The cash reserves are sized to ensure that any potential shortfall of ‘AAA’ guarantor coverage of EFSF debt payments due in the event of a borrower default will be sufficient to meet all payments.
A general cash reserve equal to the net present value of the interest margin on the loan (net of the loan-specific cash reserve) from the date of advance to its scheduled maturity date (as well as a 50bps service fee) will be deducted from the cash amount disbursed to the EFSF borrower. The general cash reserve is further supplemented by a loan-specific cash buffer to ensure that the share of guarantees from ‘AAA’-rated EAMS and cash reserves provide full coverage of EFSF debt instruments.
The general and loan-specific cash reserves are subject to investment guidelines that limit counterparty and credit risk. The bond-specific cash credit enhancement will be invested in “high quality liquid debt instruments”. Fitch has reviewed the investment guidelines and judges that they are consistent with the ‘AAA’ rating of the notes.
Notes issued under the EUR27bn programme will allow the EFSF to lend up to EUR17.7bn to Ireland under the joint EU-IMF economic programme recently agreed with the Irish authorities.
The primary source of credit and rating transition risk on notes issued under the programme is if one or more of the largest ‘AAA’ guarantors were to fail to honour its guarantee commitments or be downgraded. In the unlikely event of a downgrade, the ‘AAA’ guarantees plus cash coverage on notes previously issued under the programme could drop below the level consistent with their ‘AAA’ rating in the absence of additional credit enhancement.
