Fitch lowers Aegon perpetuals to junk

Fitch Ratings said it downgraded Aegon NV's perpetual capital securities and the trust preferred stock of Transamerica Capital II and III to BB from BBB+ and kept the securities on Rating Watch negative.

The company's A+ long-term issuer default rating, A senior unsecured debt, A- subordinated debt and other ratings are not affected and have a negative outlook.

The downgrade and Rating Watch reflect Fitch's review of the risk of coupon deferral on these instruments, taking into account recent developments - in particular comments published by the European Commission on the concept of "burden sharing" for state-aided financial institutions. Aegon received €3 billion of support from the Dutch government in December 2008.

Fitch said it views positively Aegon's recent raising of €1 billion of equity, with which it intends to repay €1 billion of the government support.

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