DBRS Downgrades NB Finance’s Guaranteed Senior Notes to ‘B’

DBRS Ratings Limited has today downgraded the ratings of the Guaranteed Notes, issued by NB Finance Ltd, to B, from BB (low). The trend is now Stable, in line with the trend on the parent, Novo Banco S.A. (NB), who guarantees the notes.

Today’s rating action follows the downgrade of NB’s Senior Long-Term Debt & Deposit ratings of NB to B from BB (low) on September 29th, 2015. The Trend on NB’s ratings is Stable. For further information please refer to the press release “DBRS Downgrades 31 European Banking Groups due to Removal of Systemic Support Uplift” on www.dbrs.com.

Separately, DBRS has also withdrawn the ratings on the Guaranteed Short-term instruments issued by Espírito Santo Plc and Novo Banco Asia, S.A., guaranteed by NB, as these debts have been repaid.

Notes:
All figures are in 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 SNL Financial. 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: María Rivas
Rating Committee Chair: Elisabeth Rudman
Initial Rating Date: July 20, 2015
Most Recent Rating Update: July 20, 2015

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Information regarding DBRS ratings, including definitions, policies and methodologies are available on www.dbrs.com.