| Add to balance / Manage account | User: | Log out |
| Prospect News home > News index > List of issuers R > Headlines for Ratings > News item |
Potential rising stars fall to 15, S&P says
New York, April 3 - The number of potential rising stars has declined to 15 from 16 in November 2002, according to a new report by Standard & Poor's.
The rating agency said that junk issuers with the potential to rise to investment grade are "increasingly difficult to find" in the current environment of weak corporate earnings.
A year ago, S&P identified 18 potential rising stars. Of these, six were upgraded, five are still on the list of candidates, four are still rated BB+ but are no longer on CreditWatch positive or have a positive outlook, two were downgraded and one is no longer rated.
Of the 15 on the current list, most are in the U.S. and Canada. Half the total are in the health care and media and entertainment industries, S&P added.
Potential rising stars are issuers rated BB+ that are on CreditWatch with positive implications or have a positive outlook.
For the first quarter, five issuers with $5.9 billion of debt were upgraded to investment-grade from high yield, S&P said.
That total was significantly below the first quarter of 2002 when there were 16 issuers with $23.0 billion of debt although the upgrade of Mexico contributed nine issuers with $12.3 billion.
Of the five rising stars in the first three months of 2003, four with $5.6 billion of debt were from the U.S., S&P said. The other one was Korean with $300 million of debt. By comparison there were 10 fallen angels with $1.48 billion in the same period.
Of the rising stars, four were due to upgrades and one to a merger. The biggest was SPX Corp. with $2.7 billion of debt.
"With only five rising stars to date this year, the annual total of global rising stars will likely remain well below last year's 30 rising stars," said Diane Vazza, S&P's head of global fixed income research, in a news release.
© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere.
For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.