MADRID, 19 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The shares of the Swedish real estate company Fastpartner suffered a fall of more than 8% on Monday at the opening of the Stockholm Stock Exchange, after the company’s debt rating was downgraded last Friday to speculative grade or ‘junk bond’ for Moody’s agency.
Specifically, the risk rating agency downgraded Fastpartner’s solvency score by one notch, lowering it to ‘Ba1’ from ‘Baa3’ and also placing it under review for possible further downgrades.
Moody’s decision reflects rapidly rising interest rates combined with subsequent capital markets challenges with increasing credit spreads, which continue to significantly increase funding costs reflected in weaker interest coverage ratios.
However, Moody’s expects Fastpartner’s operating performance to remain strong over the coming quarters with higher net rent growth due to inflation-linked rents in a significant portion of the portfolio or the ability to renegotiate rents.
“However, in Moody’s opinion, these improvements are unlikely to be sufficient to offset the pressure on valuations and higher funding costs,” the agency said.
In response to the downgrade, Sven-Olof Johansson, CEO of Fastpartner, stressed that the real estate company has worked hard to bolster its financial stability by extending the terms of its existing bank loans.
“The meaning of these measures is that we have liquidity to meet all debt maturities with a term of more than 30 months,” said the executive, for whom, in light of this and the relatively low proportion of outstanding bond loans the company, the downgrade “is of marginal significance” to the company’s day-to-day operations.
