Fitch rates Korea Development Bank bond A+

Fitch Ratings said it assigned Korea Development Bank's senior unsecured floating-rate Samurai bond issue an A+ rating. The issue size is ¥50 billion including ¥20 billion of floating-rate bonds.

The rating on the issue is in line with the bank's long-term issuer default rating, also A+. The bank's issuer default rating matches that of the Republic of Korea, reflecting the bank's quasi-sovereign status, the agency said. Fitch said discussions are currently underway in Korea over the restructuring of the country's three policy banks, including Korea Development Bank (the other two being The Export Import Bank of Korea (Kexim) and Industrial Bank of Korea). The discussions are in the very early stages and any change to the roles of the banks is unlikely to be decided, let alone implemented, for some time yet, the agency said.

Even then, Korea Development Bank may well remain a government policy bank, and Fitch said it remains comfortable that the government will remain strongly committed to supporting the bank if required over the medium to longer term.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.