Ireland

Moody’s last Friday downgraded Asset Covered Securities issued by Depfa ACS Bank from Aa2 to Aa3 because of a downgrade in the issuer’s rating from A2 to A3.

Moody’s yesterday (Wednesday) cut Ireland’s EBS Building Society from A2 to A3, on stable outlook, after having on Monday downgraded the sovereign by one notch.

Standard & Poor’s yesterday (Monday) upgraded WestLB Covered Bond Bank (CBB) from BBB+ to AA- and lifted its outlook from negative to stable, and changed the CreditWatch on the issuer’s covered bonds from negative to developing.

Moody’s has upgraded WestLB Covered Bond Bank from A2 to Aa1 because of a change of its ownership from WestLB to Erste Abwicklungsanstalt (EAA), a wind-down entity set up for WestLB. The development is “very favourable” for bondholders, said the rating agency.

Standard & Poor’s removed 10 covered bond programmes from review after affirming their ratings at AAA on Friday, but downgraded five programmes and these remain on review. The actions were taken on the last day of a four month period by the end of which S&P said it aimed to have resolved all 98 ratings it placed on review in December after introducing a new methodology.

Standard & Poor’s yesterday (Tuesday) downgraded Allied Irish Banks, Anglo-Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland after updating its credit loss assumptions for Irish banks and lowering its risk assessment of the country’s banking industry.

Mitigating actions taken or to be taken by Ireland’s covered bond issuers mean that downgrades of the institutions’ short term issuer default ratings by Fitch last week have no impact on their covered bond ratings, the agency said on Friday.

Asset covered securities and UK covered bonds issued by members of the Anglo Irish Bank group could be cut to below Aaa, said Moody’s yesterday (Thursday), after placing on review for possible downgrade Anglo Irish Bank Corporation Limited’s issuer rating earlier this week.

Moody’s put Anglo Irish Bank Corporation’s A3 rating on review for possible downgrade yesterday (Tuesday) while the banks’ future is discussed with the European Commission.

Moody’s put the A2 ratings of WestLB and WestLB Covered Bond Bank on review for possible downgrade yesterday (Tuesday), anticipating that the bank will gradually become less systemically important.

Fitch placed EBS Mortgage Finance’s covered bonds on rating watch positive today (Friday), following the same rating action two days ago on the issuer’s long term default rating.

Fitch placed EBS Building Society’s long term issuer default rating on rating watch positive yesterday (Wednesday) following an announcement that it has entered into discussions with Irish Nationwide Building Society about a possible merger.