S&P acts on South African issuers

S&P said it acted on several South African issuers following its recent downgrade of the sovereign foreign-currency and local currency ratings.

The agency revised to negative from stable the outlook on Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. and affirmed the long-term foreign- and local-currency issuer credit ratings at CCC+. S&P also affirmed the zaB long-term national rating. Concurrently, S&P affirmed the CCC+ issue ratings on Eskom's senior secured and unsecured unguaranteed notes and lowered government-guaranteed foreign-currency rating to BB- from BB.

“We lowered our long-term foreign-currency issuer credit rating on Rand Water to BB- from BB and lowered our long-term local-currency issuer credit rating to BB from BB+. The outlooks on these ratings are stable. We lowered our local-currency issue rating on Rand Water's senior unsecured debt to BB from BB+,” S&P said in a press release. The agency also affirmed the zaAAA long-term rating.

“We lowered our long-term issuer credit ratings on Telkom SA SOC Ltd. to BB from BB+ and assigned a stable outlook,” S&P said.

S&P lowered its long-term foreign- and local-currency issuer credit ratings on Transnet SOC Ltd. to BB- from BB and assigned a stable outlook. “We lowered our foreign- and local-currency issue ratings on Transnet's senior unsecured debt to BB- from BB. We lowered our local-currency issue rating on Transnet's South African rand (ZAR) 3.5 billion government-guaranteed debt to BB from BB+,” the agency said. At the same time, it affirmed the zaAA long-term South Africa national scale ratings on Transnet.

“We lowered our long-term issuer credit ratings on MTN Group Ltd. to BB- from BB and assigned a stable outlook. We affirmed our long-term South Africa national scale rating at zaAA,” S&P said.

“S&P also lowered the issue rating on the senior unsecured debt issued by MTN (Mauritius) Investments Ltd. to BB- from BB. The recovery rating remains unchanged at 3.

“We assigned our B+ issuer credit rating to Sibanye Stillwater Ltd. The outlook is stable. We also assigned the company our zaA South Africa national scale rating. We withdrew our ratings on Sibanye Gold Ltd. We affirmed our B+ issue ratings, and 3 recovery rating, on the senior unsecured debt issued by Stillwater Mining Co.,” the agency said.

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