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Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s announce rating actions on Eskom
Eskom Holdings SOC Limited
JSE Code: BIESKM
Date: 29 November 2017
MEDIA STATEMENT
Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s announce rating actions on Eskom
Wednesday, 29 November 2017: Moody’s Investor Services (Moody’s) has downgraded
to ‘Ba3’ from ‘Ba2’ the long-term corporate family rating (CFR) of Eskom; the zero coupon
eurobonds rating has similarly been revised to ‘Ba3 from ‘Ba2’ in line with the CFR and the
global medium term note (GMTN) programme and the senior unsecured GMTNs of Eskom
has been downgraded to ‘(P)B1/B1’ from ‘(P)Ba3/Ba3’. All Moody’s ratings remain under
review for further downgrades.
Standard and Poor’s Global Ratings (S&P) also announced on Tuesday, 28 November
that they have lowered Eskom’s long-term foreign and local currency corporate credit
rating to ‘B-’ from ‘B+’; the outlook is negative. S&P has simultaneously revised Eskom
stand-alone credit profile (SACP) to ‘ccc-' from ‘ccc+’
While the rating actions by both rating agencies are largely driven by the downgrade of the
sovereign credit rating; the rating agencies also cite Eskom’s deteriorating liquidity levels
and continued constraint access to funding as some of the drivers for the actions. S&P
and Moody’s have also highlighted their assessment of the assumed likelihood of timeous
government support for Eskom from ‘extremely high’ to ‘very high’ and from ‘high to
strong’, respectively.
Commenting on the rating actions, Calib Cassim, Eskom’s Acting Chief Financial Officer
said, “we are committed to ensuring an improvement of our liquidity levels and restoring
the positive lender and investor sentiment to unlock access to the markets. We remain
positive that with the cooperation of the relevant participants, the funding plan can still be
executed albeit under challenging conditions; this will strengthen our liquidity and propel
us towards positive cash flows”.
“Eskom continues to engage with the relevant key stakeholders to ensure that current
governance related issues are expeditiously resolved. We are also of the view that
government’s willingness and ability to provide timeous support to Eskom remain solid.
We believe that the resolution of the governance related issues will move Eskom towards
improved financial sustainability and ensure security of supply to continue aiding the
country’s economic growth path”, said Sean Maritz, Eskom’s Interim Group Chief
Executive.
ENDS
Issued by: Eskom Media Desk
Tel: +27 11 800 3304/3343/3378
Cell: +27 82 805 7278
Fax: 086 664 7699
Email: mediadesk@eskom.co.za
Date: 29/11/2017 02:30:00 Produced by the JSE SENS Department. The SENS service is an information dissemination service administered by the JSE Limited ('JSE').
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