DBRS Discontinues Ratings on the Senior Funding Facility and Mezzanine Funding Facility of Blackrock European CLO III Designated Activity Company

DBRS Ratings Limited (DBRS) has today discontinued the ratings on the Senior Funding Facility and the Mezzanine Funding Facility (together, the Facilities) of Blackrock European CLO III Designated Activity Company.

These discontinuations reflect the full payment of interest and principal due to the lenders of the Facilities on 16 June 2017.

The ratings for the Facilities, before payment in full, were as follows:

-- Senior Funding Facility at A (sf)
-- Mezzanine Funding Facility at BBB (low) (sf).

Notes:
All figures are in euros unless otherwise noted.

The principal methodology applicable to the rating is “Rating CLOs and CDOs of Large Corporate Credit.”

In DBRS’s opinion, a Discontinued – Repaid rating action does not warrant the application of the entire principal methodology, as the bonds have been repaid in full.

Other methodologies referenced in this transaction are listed at the end of this press release.

These may be found on www.dbrs.com at http://www.dbrs.com/about/methodologies.

For a more detailed discussion of the sovereign risk impact on Structured Finance ratings, please refer to DBRS commentary “The Effect of Sovereign Risk on Securitisations in the Euro Area” on:
http://www.dbrs.com/industries/bucket/id/10036/name/commentaries/.

The sources of information used for these ratings include the Collateral Administrator Virtus Group, L.P.

DBRS did not rely upon third-party due diligence in order to conduct its analysis.

At the time of the initial rating DBRS was not supplied with third-party assessments. However, this did not impact the rating analysis.

DBRS considers the data and information available to it for the purposes of providing these ratings to be of satisfactory quality.

DBRS does not audit or independently verify the data or information it receives in connection with the rating process.

The last rating action on this transaction took place on 31 March 2017, when DBRS finalised the provisional ratings assigned to the Facilities.

The lead analyst responsibilities for this transaction have been transferred to Joana Seara da Costa.

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

As this is a Discontinued – Repaid rating action, the sensitivity analysis is not applicable.

For further information on DBRS historical default rates published by the European Securities and Markets Authority (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: Joana Seara da Costa, Senior Financial Analyst
Initial Rating Date: 9 December 2016

DBRS Ratings Limited
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Registered in England and Wales: No. 7139960

The rating methodologies used in the analysis of this transaction can be found at:
http://www.dbrs.com/about/methodologies

-- Rating CLOs and CDOs of Large Corporate Credit
-- Legal Criteria for European Structured Finance Transactions
-- Unified Interest Rate Model for European Securitisations
-- Cash Flow Assumptions for Corporate Credit Securitizations

A description of how DBRS analyses structured finance transactions and how the methodologies are collectively applied can be found at: http://www.dbrs.com/research/278375