S&P report counts two more issuers up from junk, no more fallen angels

By Susanna Moon

Chicago, Sept. 15 - Standard & Poor's said the number of fallen angels held steady since its last report at 28, and the tally of rising stars ticked up by two to 25 this year through Sept. 8.

URS Corp. and Petrohawk Energy Corp. were both upgraded to investment grade from speculative grade.

The 28 fallen angels accounted for $226.3 billion of rated debt, compared with $73.8 billion of rated debt for the 25 rising stars, Diane Vazza, head of S&P's global fixed-income research, noted in a press release.

S&P said its count of potential rising stars is 17 issuers, a drop of one since last month. Potential rising stars are issuers rated BB+ with either positive outlooks or ratings on CreditWatch with positive implications.

Meanwhile, the number of potential fallen angels rose by two to 42.

Heartland Building Society and RONA Inc. both made their way on to the list of potential fallen angels, which are issuers rated BBB- with either negative outlooks or ratings on CreditWatch with negative implications.

Banks lead the list of potential fallen angels with 10 issuers, the release noted. Five of the banks are based in Portugal, which is also the largest potential fallen angel this month with $118.4 billion of rated debt, Vazza noted.

By region, the United States leads the pack with 17 issuers, or 40.5% of the potential fallen angels.

This month, 16 companies on the list are constituents of various Standard & Poor's indexes.

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