Rising stars tally soars by three to a total of 10, S&P report says

By Jennifer Chiou

New York, June 22 - Standard & Poor's said in its most recent rising stars report that it has upgraded three issuers to investment grade from speculative grade, bringing the 2010 total to 10.

The issuers were National Semiconductor Corp., E-CL SA and the Republic of Panama.

Along with the seven other rising stars, they have rated debt worth $24.46 billion, according to an agency release.

S&P said it defines potential rising stars as issuers rated BB+ with either a positive outlook or ratings on CreditWatch with positive implications.

In contrast, the count of issuers about to cross over in the opposite direction - potential fallen angels - is at 65. They have rated debt worth $219.55 billion.

The fallen angels mark is down from the 18-year record high of 82 in March 2009.

Since its previous report, the agency has removed three issuers from its list of potential rising stars. Two were removed after they were upgraded while the other was erased after S&P revised its outlook on the company to stable.

Since then, the agency said it added AES Panama SA to the potential rising stars list after having revised the CreditWatch status of its ratings on the company to positive following the May 25 upgrade of Panama (BBB-/stable/A-3).

"These changes reduced the number of issuers on our list of potential rising stars to 14 with $23.49 billion, or €19.11 billion, in rated debt," Diane Vazza, head of S&P's global fixed-income research, said in the release.

"By issuer count, this is one less than the average of the past 12 months."

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