Nordic Credit Rating AS (NCR) today published its proposed methodology for group and government support, clarifying its approach to ownership and government support for rated entities and defining its rating approach to ratings on holding companies and special-purpose financing vehicles.
The proposed methodology will replace the ownership analysis section of NCR's Corporate Rating Methodology and the support analysis section of its Financial Institutions Rating Methodology. These two methodologies will be republished, with references to the Group and Government Support Methodology and other minor edits, upon publication of the new methodology.
We are requesting comments on the proposed methodology and encourage interested parties to provide direct feedback via criteria@nordiccreditrating.com by 15 Nov. 2021. We will review all comments received, with the intention of publishing an anonymised summary of comments and the final criteria by the end of November 2021.
Methodology summary
The proposed Group and Government Support Methodology:
- defines how NCR assesses ownership support in its corporate and financial institution ratings, updating and replacing sections of the existing methodology;
- defines group members as either vital, significant, minor or insignificant to the owner, with guidelines on characteristics and notching;
- defines instances where operating companies may be notched above the parent;
- defines our approach to government support, with definitions of an entity's significance to government and its ownership status, as well as notching principles based on these assessments;
- defines our approach to rating special-purpose financing entities; and
- defines our approach to issuer and issue ratings on corporate and financial institution holding companies.
Impact on published ratings
We do not expect the new methodology to have an impact on any published ratings. However, any ratings that could potentially fall within the scope of this methodology will be placed on Under Criteria Review (UCR) and each assigned a UCR identifier. All ratings placed on UCR will be reviewed as soon as possible and no later than six months after publication of the methodology.
The full criteria documents are available at:
https://nordiccreditrating.com/governance/methodologies.
Contact details
Marcus Gustavsson, Lead Analyst, +46 700 44 27 75
Sean Cotten, Chief Rating Officer, +46 735 60 03 37