Mixed bag for Australia's smaller banks in latest S&P revisions release
Standard & Poor's (S&P) released another wave of ratings revisions on December 7 following the publication of its new criteria for banks, with the latest round affecting two Australian institutions. Bank of Queensland has been downgraded by one notch to BBB with a stable outlook while Bendigo and Adelaide Bank was upgraded one notch to A- stable.S&P revision downgrades Australian majors but outlooks stable
Standard & Poor's (S&P) has revealed the impact of its new bank rating criteria on the largest Australian banks, with the outcome for the big four matching most analysts' base case scenario: a one notch downgrade to AA- from AA, but with a stable outlook on the new rating. The big loser in the announcement is Macquarie Group, which is downgraded to BBB from A-, although its subsidiary Macquarie Bank retains its A stable rating.ARTC returns to domestic market with new oversubscribed three-year [UPDATED]
Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) (Aa2) launched and priced a new domestic deal on December 1, taking its target volume of A$200 million (US$205 million). The floating rate three-year deal was oversubscribed and priced in line with indicative pricing of 130 basis points over the bank bill swap rate.Lloyds seeking exchange on A$600 million of domestic tier two notes
Lloyds TSB Bank (Lloyds) has opened an exchange offer for the A$600 million (US$604.5 million) of outstanding lower tier two notes originally issued in 2007 by HBOS, as part of a attempt to roll all its tier two capital securities with 2012 call dates. While the bank has not ruled out a call on any notes that are not exchanged it also suggests that a 2012 call is unlikely.More than A$70 billion on issue from 37 banks revised by S&P
The 37 international banks which had their Standard & Poor's (S&P) ratings revised on November 29 – predominantly for the worse – in line with the agency's new criteria have more than A$70 billion (US$70.2 billion) on issue in Kangaroo and domestic Australian format according to KangaNews data. They also have more than NZ$2.5 billion (US$1.9 billion) outstanding Kauri and New Zealand domestic bonds.