DBRS Morningstar Discontinues Ratings on Liberbank, following Acquisition by Unicaja

DBRS Ratings GmbH (DBRS Morningstar) has discontinued its ratings on Liberbank, S.A. (Liberbank or the Bank), including the Bank’s Issuer Rating of BBB (low) Under Review Positive, due to business reasons. The rating action follows the completion of Unicaja Banco, S.A’s (Unicaja) acquisition of Liberbank, after which Liberbank has ceased to exist as a legal entity, and Unicaja has legally assumed all of the assets and liabilities of Liberbank.

DBRS Morningstar has discontinued Liberbank’s ratings, which were placed Under Review with Positive Implications on June 1 2021, without concluding the Review, since DBRS Morningstar does not rate Unicaja.

The Intrinsic Assessment and the Support Assessment on Liberbank were also discontinued. A full list of rating actions is included at the end of this press release.

ESG CONSIDERATIONS

A description of how DBRS Morningstar considers ESG factors within the DBRS Morningstar analytical framework can be found in the DBRS Morningstar Criteria: Approach to Environmental, Social, and Governance Risk Factors in Credit Ratings at https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/373262.

Notes:
All figures are in EUR unless otherwise noted.

The principal methodology is the Global Methodology for Rating Banks and Banking Organisations (19 July 2021) https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/381742/global-methodology-for-rating-banks-and-banking-organisations
Other applicable methodologies include the DBRS Morningstar Criteria: Approach to Environmental, Social, and Governance Risk Factors in Credit Ratings (3 February 2021)
https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/373262/dbrs-morningstar-criteria-approach-to-environmental-social-and-governance-risk-factors-in-credit-ratings

For more information regarding rating methodologies and Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), please see the following DBRS Morningstar press release: https://www.dbrsmorningstar.com/research/357883.

The sources of information used for this rating include Liberbank - Annual Reports (2015-2020), Liberbank - Quarterly Reports (2015-Q1 2021), Liberbank - Presentations (2015-Q1 2021), European Banking Authority (EBA) Transparency Exercises, Bank of Spain Statistical Bulletin and S&P Global Market Intelligence. DBRS Morningstar considers the information available to it for the purposes of providing this rating to be of satisfactory quality.
DBRS Morningstar 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 12-month period. DBRS Morningstar's outlooks and ratings are under regular surveillance.

For further information on DBRS Morningstar 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. DBRS Morningstar understands further information on DBRS Morningstar historical default rates may be published by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on its webpage: https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/credit-rating-agencies.

This rating is endorsed by DBRS Ratings Limited for use in the United Kingdom.

Lead Analyst: Pablo Manzano, Vice President, Global FIG
Rating Committee Chair: Elisabeth Rudman, Managing Director, Head of European FIG - Global FIG
Initial Rating Date: December 3, 2013
Last Rating Date: June 1, 2021

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For more information on this credit or on this industry, visit www.dbrsmorningstar.com.