DBRS Confirms Govt Gteed Debt of National Asset Management Limited at ‘A’; Trend Revised to Positive

DBRS Ratings Limited (DBRS) has today confirmed the Guaranteed Senior Unsecured Debt rating of National Asset Management Limited’s (NAML or the Group) at ‘A’ and the Short-Term Guaranteed Senior Unsecured Debt rating at R-1 (low). The trend on both ratings has been changed to Positive, from Stable. This rating action follows DBRS’s confirmation of the Republic of Ireland at ‘A’, and the trend change to Positive from Stable on September 11, 2015.

National Asset Management Limited is a special purpose vehicle set up by Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) and is responsible for issuing government guaranteed debt instruments for the purposes of acquiring eligible bank assets. National Asset Management Limited is a wholly-owned subsidiary of National Asset Management Agency Investment Limited, which is 51% owned by private investors and 49% owned by NAMA. For the three months to end-March 2015, NAMA reported a net profit after tax of EUR 129 million.

Following EUR 9.1 billion of redemptions in 2014, NAMA redeemed EUR 1 billion of its senior bonds in 1Q15, and a further EUR 1.75 billion in 2Q15, bring the total cumulative amounted redeemed to EUR 19.35 billion, equivalent to 64% of the EUR 30.19 billion debt originally issued to acquire the bank assets.

As a result of the guarantee the ratings will move in line with the rating of the Republic of Ireland.

Notes:
All figures are in Euros (EUR) unless otherwise noted.

The principal applicable methodology is the Global Methodology for Rating Banks and Banking Organisations (June 2015). Other applicable methodologies include the DBRS Criteria: Support Assessments for Banks and Banking Organisations (March 2015) and DBRS Criteria: Rating Bank Capital Securities – Subordinated, Hybrid, Preferred & Contingent Capital Securities (February 2015). These can be found can be found at: http://www.dbrs.com/about/methodologies

The sources of information used for this rating include DBRS ratings of the Republic of Ireland.
DBRS considers the information available to it for the purposes of providing this rating was of satisfactory quality.

DBRS does not audit the information it receives in connection with the rating process, and it does not and cannot independently verify that information in every instance.

Generally, the conditions that lead to the assignment of a Negative or Positive Trend are resolved within a twelve month period. DBRS’s outlooks and ratings are under regular surveillance

For further information on DBRS historic default rates published by the European Securities and Markets Administration (“ESMA”) in a central repository, see:
http://cerep.esma.europa.eu/cerep-web/statistics/defaults.xhtml.

Ratings assigned by DBRS Ratings Limited are subject to EU regulations only.

Lead Analyst: Ross Abercromby
Rating Committee Chair: Roger Lister
Initial Rating Date: April 21, 2011
Most Recent Rating Update: March 18, 2015

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